Keeping staff and patients safe while maintaining an open facility is just one of the challenges facing security teams in hospital and healthcare settings. Security and SDM find out more from both ends of the syringe: healthcare end users and integrators. Diane Ritchey, editor of Security, and Laura Stepanek, editor of SDM, recently spoke with end users and integrators in healthcare security about what drives this important market.
Rockford Memorial Hospital, Rockford, ILL, the community’s first hospital, opened its doors in 1885. Over the years, the organization built its reputation on its quality doctors, leading-edge technology, comprehensive services and outstanding facilities.
CoxHealth, a long-time advocate of electronic surveillance, uses more than 300 video cameras to monitor its vast campus. But gaps in coverage and archiving constraints of its multi-DVR analog systems made it difficult to review weekly incident reports and quickly gather forensic video.
The city of Phoenix recently upgraded emergency communications infrastructure at two parking garages in downtown Phoenix. One of the garages is open to public parking and is located on the intersection of West Washington Street and 3rd Avenue. The second garage is reserved for City of Phoenix employees.
California now requires that hospitals conform to minimal security standards by laying out required guidelines. This law is confined to the state of California, but it has national implications. Some hospital security executives believe that it is just a matter of time before these standards begin to appear in Environment of Care Standards required by the Joint Commission.
Hospitals and healthcare facilities need to professionally manage guests entering the lobby, account for who is entering the facility and screen for unwanted visitors.
Getting a physical can do wonders for people and hospitals. William Nesbitt, CPP, president of Security Management Services International, Inc., has great advice on his Web site http://www.smsiinc.com.
The sad irony is that gun violence has seeped into hospitals and healthcare facilities. And officials now train their security officers and healthcare staff more generally to spot potential shooters and deescalate certain situations.
The Palm Beach County Health Department is a service organization responsible for the health of more than a million residents in Palm Beach County, Fla. It shares responsibility for primary care of the medically indigent population of the county with the private sector.
RSS
