It is Time for Hospitals to Step Up Their Security Game

The word hospital stems from hospitality. Being hospitable is indeed a vital trait when you are tending to people in physically weak and emotionally strained conditions. People come to us in a state of need and expect to heal in am environment of care. Although patients, and their families are focused on their physical healing, they can only remain focused on their own improvement if they feel safe. Safe from infection, safe from medical error, safe from accidental falls…but also safe from security risks. In fact their personal security is something all patients and families take for granted. After all this is a hospital and we have seen security guards walking around, we should be safe, shouldn’t we?

Who else is walking around? Do we genuinely know. As the number one venue of incidents of workplace violence and a safe haven for petit theft crimes (and major thefts as well), Hospitals may not longer be the safe sanctuary from what is transpiring outside the front doors.  

It is time for healthcare security executives to throw out the old paradigms of security. You know: put a guy in a uniform in the main lobby or the E/D lobby and all it a day. Or spend 100K on video cameras and declare your campus covered! The historical view of what securing a hospital entails has changed. We are not thinking on the level of a Max-Fed prison, where you know the disposition of your entire population, but shouldn’t hospitals know who comprises their population at any given moment?

A visitor management system (VMS) combined with access control, and a professional security force, should be the foundation of any healthcare facility’s (HCF) security program.  These three fundamentals equate to the building blocks of a solid security plan. At its heart, is the simple, yet highly effective concept of knowing who is in your facility at all times. A hospital’s general population is comprised of four categories: Patients, Visitors, Staff, and Contractors/Vendors. With few exception, everyone in the hospital fits into one of these criteria. With an effective visitor management program, maintaining a bird’s eye view of these populations means having an advantage in the event of a critical incident. 

The general components of an effective hospital VMS include: 

1.     Hardware and software necessary to establish screening station (this includes basic computer components, a visitor management software, pass/sticker printer). The station should be designed and furnished in a fashion that is both aesthetically appealing, with a furniture design that naturally “funnels” pedestrian towards the station.

2.     Appropriate way-finding and signage is necessary so there are no difficulties finding the visitor management station and to lessen any stress experienced by the public in determining where to go and what to be prepared for (ID out and visible, information security will require, etc…)

3.     Competent, professional healthcare security officers, preferably trained in accordance with the International Association of Healthcare Security & Safety (IAHSS)[1] healthcare security officer training program. Demonstrating competency in not just the use of the screening equipment, but in visual screening-what to look for and be cognizant of. Again, referring to IAHSS  guidelines, as well as the See Something, Say Something[2], as promulgated by the Department of Homeland Security. 

Like all physical security programs, no countermeasures will ever be 100% effective; however, a viable VMS program (program includes the technology, the people, and the accompanying policy and procedures) can greatly reduce an HCF’s risks. A hospital may not be a prison, but its not a shopping center either. Unscreened, free-flowing pedestrian traffic is no longer an acceptable risk in the healthcare setting.

Michael S. D’Angelo, CPP, CSC, CHPA is a Board Certified and Independent Security Consultant based in South Florida. His Firm’s professional services include: Security Risk Assessments, Forensic Consulting, and Workplace Violence Education & Mitigation-with a specialty in the healthcare setting. He can be reached at: 786-444-1109 or www.securedirection.net

[1] https://www.iahss.org/page/trainingandcertifications

[2] https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something/what-suspicious-activity