Medical Integration
Dallas hospital includes emergency phone system on campus
- By Samuel Shanes
- Apr 01, 2012
Integration of multifaceted security
systems can be a serious
challenge. Using cameras, call
boxes, mass notification systems
and access control readers together
is a difficult but increasingly common
goal. Many products on the market
provide partially integrated solutions,
but with some limitations and added
complexities.
Like many locations around the
country, Parkland Hospital in Dallas
wanted to find a solution that integrated
well with existing security systems as well
as future installations. Additionally, it
wanted to find a system that could cover
access control, mass notification and basic
emergency communication.
Dan Birbeck, lieutenant with the Dallas
County Hospital District Police Department,
is the liaison for the Parkland
Hospital replacement team installing
Parkland’s new access gates, mass notification
system and security features. He
was charged with finding the best integration
option for Parkland.
“Parkland is adding a 2-millionsquare-
foot hospital replacement,”
Birbeck said. “It is the largest hospital
replacement in the country. Extensive
research was done to find
the best emergency communication
solution for the replacement.
We researched
a lot of different companies
to find the one that
integrated best with all of
our systems.
“Talk-A-Phone covered
all fronts and was
the best fit for everything
we offer. My
department even received
direct training
from the company. We
learned how to integrate
all of the Talk-A-Phone
systems with the systems we already had.
“I think that Talk-A-Phone adds to
the overall safety of the campus. We’ve
experienced a ton of improved efficiencies
and response times due to the installation.
Our customer service response
has improved dramatically. They integrate
with all of our other systems, and
without them it would be hard for us to
manage what we do. It makes our job
and having contact with the public that
much easier.”
Parkland employs nearly 9,500
people in its nine community-oriented
primary care clinics along with a multitude
of school-based clinics and offsite
business locations. Parkland’s original
facility is slightly more than 1 million
square feet and is connected through its
children’s hospital and the University
of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
The connection to surrounding facilities
required a tightly integrated security
system covering the entire campus. The
first piece of Parkland’s safety and security
puzzle was installing Talk-A-Phone
call boxes and emergency towers along
with access control readers in various
locations indoors and in parking lots,
Birbeck said.
Controlling Access, Flow
“We have several different locations
where we utilize the access card readers,”
Birbeck said. “We have them in various
parts of our hospital, parking structures
and open lots. They allow us to control
access to specific locations, as well as the
flow of traffic in and out of our facilities.”
To further improve the department’s
response time and security management,
Birbeck wanted to integrate card readers
with Talk-A-Phone call boxes and security
cameras.
“Our access card readers are integrated
with the Talk-A-Phone units and
camera systems,” Birbeck said. “Once
the access card reader is activated, we
verify the user’s information on our camera
system. If everything checks out,
then the system, or our dispatch center,
grants access to the individual. The units
are additionally set up to provide a map
for the dispatcher, indicating the location
of the unit that’s been activated.”
Birbeck noted that nearly 10,000
people use the access control readers at
Parkland every day.
“A few of our older parking garages
didn’t have the Talk-A-Phones with the
access card readers at the security gates,”
he said. “A lot of times, at those locations,
we would experience a problem or
holdup that created a car jam. Adding
the phones with the card readers to those
locations has allowed us to immediately
identify if there is a problem at one of
the gates. Before, when the Talk-APhones
were not installed, it would take
us a while to provide assistance and get traffic moving again through the lots.”
Camera Coalescence
The next piece of Parkland’s safety and
security puzzle was integrating the tremendous
number of Sky Point cameras
with the rest of the hospital’s security
systems. Birbeck specifically wanted
the Sky Point cameras to directly interact
with the Talk-A-Phone call boxes
and emergency towers. He also wanted
the cameras to provide a clear record of
a situation before and after activation
of a Talk-A-Phone unit.
The integration of the Talk-APhones
with the camera and access
card readers allows security to use all
the systems together at once. For example,
when a Talk-A-Phone unit is activated,
the Sky Point cameras lock onto
the area where the call box is located.
The same thing applies for the access
card readers.
The units immediately connect to
a 911 dispatcher who can see what is
happening at the location through the
view of the Sky Point cameras. The
cameras give a clear record of what
was happening before, during and after
an activation.
The Sky Point cameras are located
both separately from the call boxes and
directly on top of the emergency towers.
Talk-A-Phone offers the WEBS
Radius Towers that have an extension
arm to mount the cameras. Parkland
has implemented this option on several
emergency towers around its campus.
Not only do the cameras help out during
emergencies, but their mere presence
helps to deter crime. Birbeck said
the addition of call boxes and towers
greatly adds to the overall effect of
crime prevention.
Merging Mass Notification
The last piece of Parkland’s safety and
security puzzle was integrating a mass
notification solution to the rest of its
security systems. Talk-A-Phone’s WEBS
towers and WEBS Contact mass notification
software gave Parkland “the tools
to both manage and broadcast our messages,”
Birbeck said. “Talk-A-Phone’s
WEBS Contact and WEBS towers allow
us to broadcast prerecorded messages
inside and outside our facilities. The
software allows us to contact everyone
at the same time or contact separate areas
of the campus individually.”
Many campuses around the country
use their safety and security systems
only occasionally each year. Parkland
uses its system every hour of every
day, and the majority of call box and
emergency tower activations and usage
comes directly from visitors. Birbeck
has seen this firsthand.
“Our visitors and patients directly
use the Talk-A-Phones more than we
do,” he said. “We get calls for emergencies,
parking issues, and information
requests. They are frequently used to
request medical assistance near our
emergency room parking garages.
“Visitors also use them to report suspicious
activity, in which case we’re able
to dispatch officers out to the location.
“In the planning stages for the new
additions to Parkland, the main question
we would always hear would be,
‘Will Parkland still have the blue light
phones?’ They were pleased to hear that
we were expanding the Talk-A-Phones
to our new facilities for their safety.”
This article originally appeared in the April 2012 issue of Security Today.