At the Heart of the Matter

Escort system protects growing staff of busy urban hospital

• By Norm Hoefler
• Aug 01, 2007

THE operation of a busy regional hospital has enough challenges without taking into account the security of its staff. For Hotel Dieu Grace Hospital, located on the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario, the priority was finding one system that would allow hospital workers to immediately reach out to security in an emergency situation.

As the region's premier tertiary acute care hospital, the four-acre campus encompasses a busy emergency room, large psychiatric and neurosurgical units, a renal dialysis program and a cardiac care center. Hotel Dieu Grace Hospital was looking to satisfy a host of different security concerns, such as the safety of hospital employees walking to their cars late at night and the staff as a whole, particularly when dealing with psychiatric patients and in the public access areas of the emergency room. Not only would the solution have to signal an immediate "code white" to hospital security staff regardless of the location of the employee, but the system also would need to integrate with the existing alarm and video infrastructure.

Ever-Ready Protection

When Hotel Dieu Grace began to investigate a new system, Wally Dowhayko, security manager, turned to systems integrator G4S Technology and Bosch Security Systems. The solution: the Security Escort System, a wireless system that allows users to send an emergency signal to a central console using a pendant worn around their necks. Once the signal is received by the software, the pendant transmits a signal every seven seconds, enabling the system to track the location and movement of the user. The console operator uses this constantly updated information to direct security personnel to the scene.

"The use of the pendant for the security escort system has become mandatory for all employees of the hospital?lose to 2,200 staff members part of our occupational health and safety policy," Dowhayko said. "Now, the system covers every inch of the hospital and provides protection whether you're in a parking garage or other high-risk area of the hospital."

For regular hospital personnel, the security escort system only tracks location after an alarm has been activated. Security officers, also from G4S, are outfitted with a unique pendant, known as a man-down transmitter, which constantly reports their location at all times during their shift.

"If the individual were to become unconscious or be in a horizontal position for longer than the predetermined time, the system would send an alarm to the central monitoring console," said Daniel Bewsh, sales manager for G4S.

This feature enables Dowhayko and his staff to monitor the activity of security officers at any time during a particular shift.

Convenient Integration

Another critical factor in the escort installation was integrating the system with the existing CCTV infrastructure. Because of that interface, the hospital's 90-camera surveillance system provides video coverage of the location of an alarm. That video also is visible to security staff through the central monitoring console.

"This system requires communication between different products. Since we have been able to work with a single manufacturer, the transition has been seamless," Bewsh said.

Dowhayko is considering additional uses for the security escort system to increase the hospital's return on investment, using the system's ability to track objects as an asset protection device. For example, the system could be used by the hospital's Biomedical Unit to find the campus' 300 infusion pumps when they need to perform regular maintenance on the devices. Beds and wheelchairs used for patient transportation also are being considered for the tracking feature.

"Being able to locate a piece of hospital equipment with a simple computer query is cost-effective and allows staff to spend valuable time servicing equipment instead of searching for it," Dowhayko said. "We are constantly brainstorming innovative ideas to get the most out of our equipment. It's all about multitasking."