SubscribeEach day, hospitals around the globe are filled with hundreds of thousands of people and billions of dollars in equipment, drugs, and other resources.
A typical hospital environment -- with its open spaces, trusting atmosphere, and a transient population of patients, visitors, and staff -- is ripe with potential security threats.
In recent years, hospital security has become the focus of both increased concern and dramatic change.
State and municipal courts have demanded increased security from hospital administrators, but the cost to retrofit new high-tech facilities security among pre-existing building structures and security systems is often outrageous and sometimes impossible.
To implement these new changes, security management teams first execute security vulnerability assessments to measure those threats unique to a particular hospital, including characteristics of its location, size, layout, and activity level.
Once these characteristics have been determined, a security systems supplier is equipped with this risk assessment plan and may then recommend particular security systems monitoring equipment such as CCTV security cameras, DVR surveillance systems, digital video cameras, digital video recorders, digital video switchers, wireless security equipment, and other features of video surveillance security systems.
Hospital Security
Begins With Access Control
Another important factor in security management and facilities security assessment is access control. Implementing access control systems in a hospital setting has always been a challenge in building security, since most facilities welcome family members and guests in areas with large numbers of patients, hospital staff, and expensive medical equipment.
Updating Hospital Security
Often Requires Coupling Existing Security Systems With New Security Technology
New technology has allowed for improved patient monitoring, such as the skin-sensing bracelets worn by newborns in many hospital facilities that communicate with an rf identification system. When an infant is removed from a designated area, an alarm is triggered which automatically locks down access to and from the immediate area. This same technology can be applied to other patients who are at risk from escaping hospital control.
When combined with updated surveillance systems equipment such as DVR security cameras, video security systems can be successfully integrated with high-tech access control security systems. Then, campus-wide video monitoring of the security system from a central security control station can keep hospitals prepared to handle any potential security threats. A digital video recorder with removable hard drive can be used to both document and research any building security incidents.
In designing or retrofitting a system of security systems monitoring equipment, hospital management often contacts security systems suppliers and purchase updated surveillance systems equipment and digital implements to link surveillance with access control systems and other important security equipment.
To organize these systems in centralized locations, it is also necessary to set up security furniture for critical infrastructure protection.
Such furniture allows security officers to monitor a hospital's activity from multi-tier LCD flat-screen displays and coordinate activities such as digital recording, surveillance and electronic control of the facility's complex premises.
Such arrangements can quickly become expensive when purchased from a designated security systems supplier, and there is a strong need for high-quality, cost effective hospital security solutions.
ImageVision's SecureVIEW ® security consoles can provide hospital management, security personnel, or their security systems integrator with a cost-effective solution to support expanded security monitoring, additional security systems equipment and security furniture requirements.
To begin the process, ImageVision can provide detailed AutoCAD layout drawings of the proposed SecureVIEW ® modular security consoles. Their security furniture solutions are tailored to accommodate virtually any facility's requirements.
Imagevision's
SecureVIEW ®
Hospital Security Furniture
For example, ImageVision provided security console layout and design assistance to Bennett Electronics, a security systems integrator, responsible for updating the facilities monitoring equipment at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Illinois.
In an article titled "A Picture of Health" (June 2005), the improvements provided by Bennett Electronics utilizing SecureVIEW technical furniture are described in detail.
ImageVision sales representatives can typically produce a similar customized solution along with a detailed proposal for a facility's hospital security console requirements within 48 hours.
Contact ImageVision by clicking the link below and selecting the "Contact Us" button. Once you complete the online form with a summary of your request, we'll call you promptly to discuss your specific security system and security console furniture needs and design a best-fit solution.