Page 32 - Campus Security & Life Safety, November 2017

from a central point. Our hospital uses code buttons that ride on the access control system. When someone pushes a button to call for help, we use the access control system to monitor those.”
Chase felt the consultant’s recommendation of the AMAG Symme- try SR met all those requirements nicely. “AMAG is a global company, and fully integrated with video management.”
For the camera upgrade, Spectrum installed AMAG’s Complete- View VMS system. “We converted over 120 cameras in the initial phase,” says Spectrum’s manager, security operations, Terry Kilduff. That represents about one-third of the cameras that will eventually be upgraded, he adds. A total of 592 card readers were upgraded.
Kilduff says the installation process went extremely smoothly, par- ticularly working with the IT department to supply addresses and get- ting the systems online.
“It was a great partnership,” Chase agrees. “We had a project call once a week with the consultant, Spectrum and the IT team and any other stakeholders to look at issues or problems from the past week and to look ahead to what was next.”
To ease into the transition, Spectrum started with some smaller clinics, Feldman explains. “The first step was to match up with the Casi database. Geographically they are in different towns, so we decided to start with a smaller site and test it. Once we were confident, we moved to the bigger sites, saving the three hospitals until the end.”
The objective was to have as few disruptions for employees as pos- sible, a goal that was more than met, Chase says. “Most employees don’t realize they have upgraded to a more robust state of the art sys- tem,” he says. “It happened behind the scenes. It wasn’t necessary for us to change out the card readers, so there was no forward facing changes that they saw.
“The project met all of our goals and objectives that we set out and we were able to minimize our downtime and interruption of workflow.”
SEEING RESULTS
When it comes to how the new system is working, the results speak for themselves, Chase says. “We are no longer under this restriction to
expand. It has allowed us to deploy access control in areas where we couldn’t have otherwise. The reporting is much more robust. Software is user-friendly and we have not run into any training issues that we anticipated in transitioning to a new software.”
The Symmetry system is now monitored in the telecommunications center, based in the Everett Hospital, Chase says.
“They love it so far,” Feldman reports. “With the existing system they had many issues that couldn’t be resolved. They have cut down on the number of service calls and have no more issues with card reader boards locking up or shutting down.”
Even more important is what the new Symmetry SR solution will allow the hospital to do going forward, Chase adds. “We live in a changing world with elevated threat levels. We will have the ability to lock down areas in emergency situations. We have threat level man- ager that is a work in progress. We are in the process of tweaking and optimizing the software and wrapping up the integration.”
Now that phase one is complete, CHA and Spectrum can look for- ward to what’s next.
“They are still using the Casi cards, so we would like to look at a new solution/card that will take them into the future, such as smart card technology,” Kilduff says. More cameras are also on tap for upgrades, he adds.
“Phase two will include the expansion of card readers and IP cam- eras, and reevaluating doors,” Chase says. “CHA is growing. There are a number of construction projects going on and we want security to be involved in the planning process early on so it is not an afterthought.”
Another area he is looking at is visitor management. “We have an open campus and a tremendous number of patients
and family members. We recognize that we need to
provide secure facilities, so Symmetry GUEST
(AMAG Security’s visitor management solution) will be a consideration down the road.”
Kim Rahfaldt is the public relations manager at AMAG Technology.
CS32 WWW.CAMPUSLIFESECURITY.COM | NOVEMBER 2017
A SPECIAL SECTION TO SECURITY TODAY AND THE JOURNAL
CAMPUS SECURITY & LIFE SAFETY