Put Your Wi-Fi Network to Work for Safety and Security
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Put Your Wi-Fi Network to Work for Safety and Security
Healthcare organizations have never had higher security needs. A safe environment is essential to quality patient care, and administrators must consider many different factors, including protection of patients and staff and the security of assets—often across sizeable facilities. Protecting high-risk groups, such as newborn babies and emergency department nurses is particularly critical and challenging for healthcare organizations. And the need for security extends all the way to medical equipment and assets that can be stolen or misplaced, increasing costs and affecting patient care and satisfaction.
Wi-Fi networks are already widely deployed in hospitals and healthcare organizations around the world, and these networks are being used for much more than voice and data. Combined with real-time location systems (RTLS), Wi-Fi networks are being used to enhance the security and safety of staff, patients and assets, and to improve operational efficiency. In addition to leveraging an organization’s investment in its Wi-Fi network, these additional uses provide several tangible benefits.
Patient and Resident Security
According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, 288 infants (up to 6 months old) were abducted between 1983 and 2013. Of these attempts, 46% occurred in healthcare facilities, 58% were attempted from the infant mother’s room, and 11% were attempted from any location “on premises.” It is important to note that these statistics only cover abductions by strangers; the number of incidents involving family members is likely much higher.
Hospitals around the world have for years used electronic infant protection systems to enhance security of newborns. However, historically, these systems have relied on proprietary wireless networks and typically did not provide coverage beyond the mother-baby unit.
Now, however, organizations are able to use their Wi-Fi network and RTLS to protect patients or residents anywhere on the premises—not only in one department or area. That’s important because it allows newborns to be monitored throughout the hospital and babies can be quickly located, even during transport, transfer, and treatment in ancillary departments.
Wi-Fi RTLS can similarly help protect at-risk patients in hospitals. These patients can be provided with wearable RFID tags that track their real-time location and alert staff if they wander out of a unit or building, or enter a restricted area.
In busy acute care environments, staff can come and go throughout the day. It is often difficult for the patient and family to keep track of all the personnel, or even to be sure that everyone entering the room is who they say they are. Some hospitals are now starting to integrate their interactive bedside monitors with Wi-Fi RTLS and provide every staff member with a badge equipped with an RFID tag. Such systems are designed to identify every doctor or clinician who enters a patient room, displaying their photo, name, and credentials on the room monitor. While this gives patients and their families a greater sense of security, it also helps clinicians reduce time spent identifying themselves and logging their visits.
Staff Safety
Hospitals are dynamic, stressful environments, and there are times when staff members can find themselves in danger. Wi-Fi combined with RTLS can not only help keep babies safe and protected, it can also help reduce response times in the event of a staff member encountering an emergency situation.
Such systems consist of RFID tags with integrated call buttons worn by nurses and physicians. If a staff member feels that he or she is in danger, s/he simply presses the call button, which alerts the security team. The system provides the real-time location of the staff member in duress so that the team can get to her as quickly as possible. It also gives staff members peace of mind that help is never far away, regardless of where they are in the facility.
Asset Tracking and Security
Healthcare organizations use a wide range of expensive, highly specialized equipment and devices, such as IV pumps, telemetry units, specialty beds, even wheelchairs, that are always being moved about from place to place. Keeping track of all this equipment and making sure it’s in the right place at the right time and in the right condition is inherently complicated, and most organizations maintain a large staff just to find and manage these items. Even so, critical mobile equipment is frequently lost or in short supply, leading to increased capital outlays or rental costs, and even delays in procedures. This significantly drives up the organization’s costs and impacts the patient experience.
A Wi-Fi RTLS enables healthcare organizations to track the real-time location of critical equipment, which helps prevent loss and improve equipment utilization. The same system can also be used to alert security if someone attempts to remove a tagged item from the facility. The system will not only let security know which exit the item was taken out, it will also indicate what type of item it was, such as an IV pump, for example. Moreover, such a system can be integrated with other security systems, such as a closed-circuit TV so that video can be time-stamped when an event happens.
Beyond Safety and Security
Beyond security, Wi-Fi RTLS offers a wide range of other benefits and use cases, which means healthcare organizations can get the most out of their wireless infrastructure. For example, Wi-Fi RTLS solutions have proven to be highly effective at improving day-to-day efficiency and staff productivity. Asset tracking not only helps prevent loss or shrinkage, it also significantly cuts down the amount of time staff typically spends manually searching for items. We’ve also seen situations where hospitals have equipped nurse ID badges with RFID tags that work with their hospital’s Wi-Fi network to track the movement of nurses throughout their shift. This data is captured and analyzed, providing insights the hospital can use to make process improvements. If nurses, for example, tend to overlap one another’s work in a given unit, administrators can adjust patient room assignments.
Hospitals and other healthcare organizations are extremely complex operations with clinicians, staff, patients, and equipment constantly on the move. Using existing Wi-Fi infrastructures to help ensure the security of patients, staff and equipment is a significant step forward in a continuously growing and evolving system for operational efficiency and better patient care.
Diane Hosson is director of security solutions at STANLEY Healthcare (www.stanleyhealthcare.com).