FEATURE UNLOCKING OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
Ben Farrar, Business Development Manager at Traka UK, looks at the demands faced by facilities managers seeking to optimise hospital security in a cost and resource-effective manner, without losing the essential welcoming feel to hospital premises.
Hospitals have to consistently balance best practices with safety protocols and patient comfort while navigating a landscape of evolving medical technologies, regulatory requirements, and the ever-changing dynamics of healthcare delivery.
Providing security for hospitals involves more than the best choice of products and services – it also requires best practices and an integrated approach to ensure security, safety and convenience for staff, patients and visitors.
With hundreds of patients, doctors, surgeons, staff and visitors milling the halls of hospitals every day, security and safety at healthcare facilities are important for both quality healthcare and public safety.
Hospital security departments and staff are especially challenged to provide safe environments for employees, patients and visitors. It often falls on facilities management services to fulfil these functions, ensuring hospitals remain operational.
Setting the scene Responding to such demand is not that easy with healthcare facilities. There is plenty of significant change afoot, from increased competition to new ways of delivering care, to the ever-present uncertainties of regulations and funding. All occurring at a time of highly publicised pressure and underfunding that has led to strikes and considerable resource shortages.
With the fast-paced evolution and pressures of healthcare estates, security is a major concern, presenting site, building and facilities management with a unique challenge. Beyond the ethical responsibility to keep patients and staff safe, the abundance of expensive medical equipment and potentially harmful drugs puts all facilities at a heightened risk of theft, whether pre- planned or a simple act of opportunism.
Despite this risk, hospital security must sit alongside another equally important priority for healthcare facilities: the need for a friendly, calming and open design that makes patients and visitors feel at ease and can be seen to aid well-being and ultimate recovery.
Whilst managers want to achieve all of these aspects and may look to utilise innovative security technologies, the financial constraints in place often put a strain on implementing completely new systems. This is also considered in line with the disruption to the provision of essential medical care for design, installation, maintenance and monitoring.
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Smart solutions for safer healthcare One of the critical areas of support for facilities managers is manual key and equipment management and access control. In a hospital environment, this can prove a challenge for staff who need to move through the site quickly in an emergency.
Modern access control systems, and increasing use of biometrics and most recently facial recognition can provide several in-built advantages, but managers should keep a few things in mind when assessing potential providers, not least the cost.
Large hospitals may have complex requirements and need access control systems with scalable security protocols so that door scanners recognise staff access levels, areas of practice and likely hours of work. This allows a high level of control for a hospital's inner wards whilst keeping the building's open design and emergency response readiness.
At the same time, sophisticated security and alarm systems must incorporate different alert levels in case of emergency or major incident, capable of instantly putting the whole or part of a building on restricted access or even complete lockdown at a touch of a button.
Flexibility is also a priority, especially with the regular turnover of staff and medical students, junior doctors and contractors, but also as hospital staff may frequently switch between different areas of a hospital.
Alongside the public areas of the hospital, the core operation rooms, which all together keep the hospital running – the doctor’s personal desks, switch rooms, and electrical riser cupboards – all need to be considered in any security planning.
Integrated solutions in healthcare One solution is to take a step right back from front-end security and consider a key and equipment management system that can meet many of the challenges presented in healthcare facilities.
Keys or credentials to doors that act as barriers to sensitive areas, equipment and even vehicles are often still issued manually, with paper-based sign-in procedures to manage the process. If these are not kept up to date, a building’s operational efficiency and safety can be compromised.
An intelligent key management system can allow for the digitalisation of these records, providing a full report of key and equipment usage, including controlling access and usage of keys. This can allow for the monitoring and
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