Hospital Campus Secure
Facility staff now able to view various locations in real time
- By Mary Wilbur
- Oct 01, 2015
University Hospital, the teaching hospital
of San Antonio’s University
Health Systems is a sprawling campus
in the South Texas Medical Center,
and one of the health system’s 23
locations across the community that needed the latest
security technology.
The Bexer County Hospital District, doing business
as University Health System, has been techsavvy
for years, and it shows as they are a nationally
recognized teaching hospital and consistently recognized
as a leader in advanced treatment options, new
technologies and clinical research. With this type of
recognition for medical efforts, the hospital, which is
owned by the people of Bexar County, wanted a complimentary
security system.
“There are currently more than 1,400 cameras being
used at our sites,” said AJ Sandoval, Bexer County
Hospital District chief of police. “We are currently
transitioning from analog to all IP cameras as the
need to install or replace arises. These cameras area
an invaluable tool, which allows us to offer a higher
level of safety and security to the patients, visitors
and staff who choose to use University Health System
for their healthcare needs.”
Over the course of 20 plus years, the university’s
Protective Services department has worked with access
and video technology that was quickly becoming
obsolete. The technology was not user friendly,
not easy to integrate, and the upkeep was costly.
During a recent Capital Improvement Project, the
growing pains were addressed, with the idea in mind
that the facilities would need to be built in stages to
complete a new system. Meeting these technical expectations
also meant hiring an integrator who knew
how to get the job done right, and had their own
support to back them up.
University Health System awarded the contract to
Walker Engineering of San Antonio, who had recently
been named as a commercial integrator of the year,
and has recently been awarded three contracts—valued
at more than $20 million each. The University Health
System contract included more than 1 million square
feet and was worth more than $44 million. University
Health System also wanted an on-time delivery of its
security system and a successful collaboration with
Datacom Design Group, who was the technology systems
consultant for University Health System.
Walker Engineering’s Matt Kenjura, who was the
integrator, knew that getting products on time meant
using the right technology. He ordered 600 Axis Communications
cameras, 800 HID Global card readers
and the Software House CCure 9000 for access control.
At the front end of this technology, he deployed
Salient Systems’ CompleteView VMS.
“Because this is a publicly funded project, one of
the first things we wanted to do was buy local,” Kenjura
said. “In the case of VMS, we have a long history
with Salient, and we feel the end user will find an ease
of use with this configuration.”
A major project goal has been transitioning from
existing analog cameras to new IP cameras. Salient
CompleteView was a perfect fit because of its hybrid architecture, allowing for a connection
of analog cameras without requiring
the purchase of third-party encoders.
This hybrid capability provided another
major economic benefit beyond the
cost savings on encoders; when switching
out analog cameras for new IP cameras,
the hybrid analog port on a CompleteView
NVR can be converted to an
IP camera license without purchasing
additional software licenses.
“One of the key benefits of CompleteView
is the ability to use software licenses
regardless of whether a camera is
analog or IP” said Brian Carle, director
of product strategy for Salient. “Once
a license is purchased it can be used
regardless of the camera technology in
place, providing the best total cost of
ownership in VMS when transitioning
from analog to IP.”
One of the important features of
the VMS is the ability to aggregate the
technology with the Cinemassive Video
wall. This allows command and control
operators to view various locations in
real time and provide much needed prearrival
information to officers responding
to calls for service. The operations
center has teams around the clock.
Dynamic Resolution Scaling, a feature
of CompleteView VMS, allows
offsite camera video feeds to be transmitted
at the highest possible quality
using the lowest possible bandwidth to
the command and control center. Officers
can respond to security events
more efficiently due to fast call up of
high quality video feeds.
The combined solution provides integration
between the video and access
control systems, which provides superior
situational awareness as compared
to using both systems independently. In
the CCURE interface, video and events
from CompleteView VMS are automatically
tied to access control events, allowing
for visual verification. Events from
CCURE 9000 cause CompleteView to
automatically call up video on screen
calling attention to key camera events in
the command and control center.
The command and control center
is literally the center of intelligence at
the medical facility, including air conditioning,
fire alarms and infrastructure.
Mostly, however, it is about making
sure people are secure in this setting.
“The mission of the Bexar county
Hospital District Police Department
is to maintain social order and provide
professional law enforcement and
security services to our community,
within prescribed ethical, budgetary
and constitutional constraints,” Sandoval
said.
Hundreds of thousands of patients
and visitors pass through University
Hospital and the ambulatory facilities
every year. Some may be unfamiliar
with the facilities, so police officers and
security ambassadors offer hospitality,
care and kindness that the health system
is known for.
Sandoval said that being able to integrate
the essential public safety components
in combination with the ability
to develop positive relationships in this
diverse environment is something he
has developed with his experience.
Like the chief, Kenjura believes
when he is asked to integrate new security
equipment, this requires best of
breed solutions.
This article originally appeared in the October 2015 issue of Security Today.