Integrating Safety Technology Benefits Hospitals…and Patients

By Sharon Hong

Every day, hundreds of people come through the doors of a hospital, often under highly stressful conditions. Doctors, nurses, and staff skillfully care for these patients and provide assurance to families, some of whom are experiencing the worst days of their lives. Each day is different, but the pace, intensity, and complexity are constant.

The unpredictable environments within hospitals require intense focus, yet all too often, interruptions take place through the threat or occurrence of safety and security breaches. Doctors and nurses may be preoccupied with threats of violence from irate patients or visitors, staff working the night shift may dread the long walk to a remote parking garage, and hospital administrators may be worried about uncontrolled access to valuable equipment and prescription drugs. All of these concerns distract from the mission of any hospital or healthcare facility: the critical work of healing.

Safety has always been the foundation on which everything else is built. When people and their environments, property, and work are safe, they can concentrate on their objectives. Technology can help deliver this safety foundation and peace of mind, but only to the extent that systems work together to prevent safety and security breaches from occurring or to recognize them early and mitigate their impact.

The enhanced power of connected systems

Most hospitals today use a mix of technology that includes video cameras to help monitor campuses and buildings, access control systems to prevent unauthorized people from entering secure areas, and radio communication systems and devices for sharing day-to-day and urgent updates between people and teams. These solutions are often disparate, providing some level of helpful information but requiring people to connect the output of one system to the input of another.

Integrating these technologies from end to end, and creating and automating custom workflows, can help hospitals respond efficiently to both minor disruptions and time-critical security incidents. The unification of technology makes it possible to notify the right people on the right devices with actionable intelligence generated by video analytics, alarms, and access control systems. It allows hospitals to maximize resources by placing security individuals in high-risk areas while leveraging cameras, sensors, and artificial intelligence to automatically notify appropriate staff when something is amiss. Further, it can expedite reporting processes by populating incident reports with data captured through the response.

The end result is improved response times, more efficient security operations, reduced downtime, and advanced collaboration with local law enforcement. The effective management of security concerns builds trust in the safety of the environment and allows employees to focus more on patient care.

Orchestration to address common challenges

Technology orchestration works best when the underlying platform is easy to use, allowing security personnel to configure and automate workflows that address a wide variety of challenges. Consider the following hypothetical examples.

An employee is worried about an ex-spouse with a restraining order and known history of violence. The employee notifies hospital security of the domestic violence situation and completes an incident report to develop a safety plan. As part of the report, security obtains the ex-spouse’s license plate, name, and picture to import into the security database and issues a “be on the lookout” (BOLO) alert. If the ex-spouse’s vehicle enters the hospital’s parking lot, a video camera with embedded analytics will use license plate recognition software to identify the vehicle, automatically send an alert to security radios to assess the situation, and dispatch security to the right location with details about the incident. The person is quickly identified and prevented from entering the hospital, ensuring the safety of the employee, staff, and patients. Through automatic alerting capabilities integrated into the radios, facial recognition software allows security to track the ex-spouse in real time as they approach the known location.

An unauthorized person enters a storage room where prescription medication is housed. An alert is sent to security regarding the forced entry, and nearby cameras instantly populate. The person is identified and monitored using their appearance, and the nearest security resources are determined and dispatched. The local police are engaged with full detail on the scenario, and the incident is logged with relevant background to inform security processes and facility upgrades.

A hospital staff member notifies security of a patient elopement. Security personnel issue a BOLO alert and use a descriptor or an image of the patient selected from a previous video to automatically search all cameras across the facility to determine the patient’s location and movements. Appropriate hospital staff are dispatched to retrieve and safely return the patient.

The combination of high-quality images, analytics, and real-time alerts has an immediate impact on incident response and resolution, allowing security personnel to respond to and resolve situations with increased speed and efficiency, all without the need to manually monitor security cameras or physically patrol a campus. When resources are properly allocated, security personnel may mobilize where they are needed most during crises.

A foundation of safety for better patient care

Technology can make a safe and secure environment a reality, and the resulting benefits are often felt across a hospital’s organization. By integrating once-disparate technologies, hospitals can generate better outcomes: enhanced clinical care, higher workplace and patient satisfaction, and more efficient operations. Patients and their families are able to command the full attention of caregivers in an environment focused on rehabilitation.

Hospitals are busy, intense, and complex, but technology can provide the foundation of safety needed to keep the focus of attention where it belongs—first and foremost, on patient care.

Sharon Hong is vice president of enterprise technology at Motorola Solutions, a global leader in mission- and business-critical technologies for public and enterprise safety. The company’s portfolio spans critical communications, video security and access control, and command center software. Hong leads a team focused on integrating and automating these solutions to allow enterprises, including hospitals, airports, schools, and stadiums, to detect and analyze events, seamlessly communicate, and respond appropriately in any situation.