Hospitals are places for healing the sick and wounded, but unfortunately given their necessarily open nature they can be challenging environments to physically secure – potentially leading to additional medical emergencies.

Security executives in healthcare institutions face a range of threats that include violent patients or family members, active shooter or terrorist incidents, and department-specific issues such as understandably erratic behavior of mentally ill people in behavioral health, stressed visitors in the emergency department, and drug addicts attempting to burglarize the pharmacy.