Hospitals Maximize Their Security Budgets with THRIVE Intelligence
Hospitals are supposed to be places for healing, but the sad reality is that in recent years they have seen increasing levels of violence. According to the 2012 Crime and Security Trends Survey by the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS), 98 percent of healthcare facilities now experience violence and criminal incidents. This survey noted an alarming increase in requests for outside police assistance and confirmed that 2012 saw the largest number of fatalities at IAHSS surveyed facilities due to violence. A report by the Department of Justice echoed a similar pattern, reporting an 18 percent increase in crime at healthcare facilities in 2011.
Getting to the root causes for this spike in hospital crime, and developing true long-term solutions to the problem, is not going to be easy. For example, finding increased funding to treat mental health and/or substance abuse patients is not a certainty, and even if it does happen, it will take years for such treatment to have a noticeable impact. In the meantime, however, healthcare facilities will remain vulnerable to more and more violence.
Immediate measures are needed to help secure healthcare facilities, and one of the more intriguing possibilities is the end-to-end video surveillance solution offered by THRIVE Intelligence. Integrating event-based video monitoring, analytics “on the edge”, audio intervention, GPS tracking, and other alarm monitoring services, THRIVE delivers the kind of proactive, real-time—but cost-effective—solution hospitals need to secure their facilities and provide patients, and employees, peace of mind that they will indeed be safe inside and out.
“Utilizing 100 cameras and providing video monitoring 24/7/365 costs less than the average annual salary for one guard,” said Rick Cook, Executive Vice President at THRIVE Intelligence. “The THRIVE solution actually provides incremental safety measures by freeing up an otherwise stationary guard at a monitoring station and eliminating human error due to fatigue or strain. Our solution allows hospitals to stay within their new budget constraints without compromising safety.”
The exact installation and security requirements will vary by facility, but THRIVE Intelligence typically provides:
- 24/7/365 real-time monitoring of emergency room perimeter
- A virtual guard to allow on-site security personnel the freedom to patrol and actively assist
- Real-time detection when an unauthorized person has entered an area
- Video escort and two-way audio intervention for immediate alert and response in parking facilities
- Monitoring of restricted movement and fall-risk patients.
“Hospitals are large, complex, fast-moving environments. As such, they require a more sophisticated security infrastructure to help counteract the alarming rise in violence over the past few years,” said Matt Antkowiak, Chief Intelligence Officer at THRIVE Intelligence. “THRIVE’s video surveillance solution, which combines the most sophisticated edge-based analytics with 24/7/365 monitoring by highly trained security intervention specialists in our national command center, provides hospitals with a previously unavailable level of protection. While no system can stop every potential random act of violence, hospitals can now be assured that with THRIVE Intelligence they have a real-time, video surveillance solution that will help them stop violent activity before it even occurs.”
For more information about how THRIVE Intelligence is helping to solve healthcare security challenges across the country, contact Rick Cook, Executive Vice President of Sales at 972-331-6903, or email [email protected].