The smart way increase safety and healthcare security, according to Brian Davidson, Regional Sales Manager at Traka Americas.

Healthcare security

As hospital administrators continually evaluate security measures amid a constantly evolving threat landscape, a unique challenge has presented itself when patients are admitted with a weapon on their person.

There are no federal laws regarding weapon possession in hospitals, which means it’s up to individual states on how they want to regulate the issue and up to the hospitals to enforce it.

For those states that don’t prohibit weapon possession in a hospital, a clear solution has come to the forefront in safeguarding their storage for admitted patients.

Safe management

Intelligent lockers have proven their worth in a diverse set of industries as they’re able to integrate with a variety of security systems and thus ensure safe auditing and monitoring practices.

Within healthcare security, these lockers are often utilized for shared asset management, such as tablets, radios and laptops.

They’re also being leveraged in medication distribution, as administrators can remotely assign access to users, which can not only reduce the possibility of unauthorized personnel accessing sensitive medication, but also alleviates bottlenecks in workflows, particularly at a central distribution source.

The adoption of weapon storage has been very similar.

Let’s say a patient is admitted with a weapon on their person.

A hospital police officer then transfers the weapon to a secure intelligent locker where they scan their thumbprint or badge on the access pad and place the weapon in a secure compartment and RFID tag it.

No unauthorized staff have access to it and if that initial security officer happens to leave or is called to another emergency, an administrator can grant permission to another user to access that weapon to return to the patient.

All transactions are audited in real time, which creates a record of possession that can be presented for legal and compliance purposes.

Also, any access within the locker can be programmed to notify security and management teams that a weapon is being stored in there, so all teams are aware and can communicate effectively about its possession and handling.

Imagine a scenario where a patient is brought into an emergency department – when seconds could be the difference in his or her life – and staff members are not sure what to do with the weapon that’s present on that person.

While the patient’s life is the top concern, staff can’t afford to sacrifice safety by haphazardly handling the weapon, either.

By having a secure and intelligent locker in place, staff have a solution that can not only be accessed quickly, but one that’s integrated with their overall healthcare security system, which can be monitored by departments dedicated to always keeping staff and patients safe.

For more information about Traka’s intelligent security lockers, including use cases within the healthcare security and medical industries, please click here. 

This article was originally published in the September edition of Security Journal Americas. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.