One in three U.S. hospitals reported an increase in violence and assaults in 2014 despite widespread rising security budgets, according to a survey of 380 hospital administrators, chief security officers and staff by Guardian 8 Corporation.
Hospitals, assisted living centers, nursing homes and other healthcare providers are under constant pressure to keep their facilities safe while managing costs. In addition, they need to manage constant visitor traffic, open access in multiple buildings, hectic emergency departments, confidentiality requirements, governmental standards and patient satisfaction surveys. To effectively deal with all these issues, more and more healthcare institutions are opting to outsource their physical security services.
While security departmentsare more concerned with disruptions to patient care and C-level executives are focused on hospital administrations’ understanding of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) regulations, but hospital security decision-makers are focused on patients’ and officers’ safety overall.
In a new Solutions by Sector webinar presented by SECURITY and SDM, Jim Sawyer, director of security services for Seattle Children’s Hospital for more than 30 years, recommends that every progressive security team should adopt a “zero incidents” philosophy.
Safety and security is a number one priority at Seattle Children's Hospital and is recognized as being everybody’s responsibility. A safe culture is one that understands the hazards and risks that impact operations and encourages the reporting of potential and actual events.
Healthcare security is changing. As more and more hospitals form or join health systems or implement the Affordable Care Act, the standardization of security officer services has many advantages. The need for greater value from service providers, more efficient programs, consistent protocols for staff and patients and an increasing focus on both safety and security are positioning standardization of security services as a critical solution for health systems.
When the security team at Palmetto Health Baptist, an acute care Medical Center in Columbia, S.C., invested in an upgrade to their surveillance cameras from black-and-white to color, they did so with the expectation that it would significantly improve the quality of video they were capturing.
Rush University Medical Center in Chicago operates from a campus that spans four city blocks and 20 buildings, presenting some unique security challenges.
A woman in Merced, Calif., has been arrested on trespassing charges after she and an unnamed man allegedly twice tried sneaking into a hospital maternity ward using dolls as decoys.
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