Page 22 - Campus Security & Life Safety, May/June 2022

Healthcare Campus
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cameras (BWCs) to document their interactions with patients, visitors, and the public. These wireless-network cameras are like those used by law enforcement and serve to defend against complaints and reduce the risk of costly litigation.
To allay concerns about HIPAA compliance and individual privacy, your hospital should implement the same measures for handling BWC footage as you do for any other video and audio captured by hospital cameras and stored on hospital servers. This would involve instituting strict policies and procedures for access and configuring the video management system to only permit HIPAA-compliant personnel to watch streaming video and review archived footage.
CoxHealth, the premier healthcare system in southwest Missouri, recently enhanced their integrated security solution with wearable surveillance for their safety and security officers to help them dial down workplace violence.
“There’s always been violence in healthcare, especially patient- generated violence,” said Alan Butler, System Director for Public Safety and Security at CoxHealth. “But over the last couple of years, we’ve seen the level of violence and aggression escalate exponentially.”
Officers say that when someone sees they’re being recorded, it often helps to de-escalate confrontations. Having the BWC footage also helps the hospital quickly dismiss frivolous and false complaints against officers. Officers regularly review their recorded interactions to help them improve their future responses to incidents of workplace violence and aggression.
Improving Patient Care and Safety
To maintain high-quality care in the face of staffing shortages, many hospitals are relying on integrated security systems to assist caretakers in closely monitoring multiple patients in high-risk areas like ICUs, maternity floors, psych wards and rehabilitation centers, as well as critical equipment like ventilators and dialysis machines. For instance, staff can discretely watch patients with dementia, mental health and substance abuse issues remotely to avoid increasing their agitated state. Intelligent cameras linked with patient positioning sensors and bed exit alarms can immediately alert medical staff to
patients in distress or in danger of falling out of bed. And video intercoms can provide reassuring communication between non- critical patients, their visitors, and staff.
Olomouc University Hospital in the Czech Republic used integrated security technology to create a new way for mothers and their premature and ill newborns to bond despite the barrier of an incubator. They installed lightweight video cameras atop each incubator and linked the cameras to a secure video management platform.
They issued parents and other family members a unique access code to log onto the livestream of their infant that runs 24/7. Authorized medical staff can also log onto the cameras to monitor their patient’s vitals. To protect patient and family privacy, the hospital doesn’t record and store the video.
“Mothers and other relatives who meet for ‘incubator streaming’ appreciate very much that they can monitor the child’s progress each day with their own eyes, which further strengthens their bond,” said Dr. Lumír Kantor, Ph.D. and chief physician in Olomouc’s newborn department.
Limitless Challenges, Limitless Solutions
There are clear advantages to taking an integrated systems approach to hospital safety and security. Employing a mix of technologies— video cameras, analytics, sensors, intelligent audio, access control and more—can help your facility be more proactive in detecting threats and mitigating risks. It can help you maintain high-quality patient care in the face of shrinking staff and increased patient loads. With multiple technologies working together, you not only acquire better situational awareness and capture critical forensic evidence of events, but you now have both a mechanism for holding everyone accountable for their actions and a training tool for future interactions. And this provides a strong foundation for meeting today’s challenges—and whatever might be coming down the road.
Paul Baratta is the Segment Development Manager for Healthcare at Axis Communications, Inc.
22 campuslifesecurity.com | MAY/JUNE 2022