Raffaele Ceravolo, Regional Sales Manager at Traka Americas shares his insights on trends in healthcare and how intelligent key and asset management is improving workflows in nearly every sector.

What are some of the typical applications for key cabinets in the healthcare industry?

Hospitals and healthcare systems operate as their own little cities.

From fleet vehicle management, maintenance and mechanical needs, access control and key overrides, there are a variety of uses for keys.

Additionally, there are highly sensitive areas like drug storage that require advanced security and auditing management.

Each sector can sometimes act in its own silo – they all have unique requirements and don’t always consider expanded usage beyond their department.

There are also temporary users of keys, like contractors, which can sometimes necessitate either multiple key cabinets or diverse access control within a centrally located cabinet that’s easy to on-board for transient users.

How are asset/medication lockers used?

Just like with key cabinets, there’s a wide variety of use cases for lockers in healthcare, including storing shared radios and tablets.

We’ve had customers requesting a locker to store their food thermometers for their food service staff, since those are expensive pieces of equipment.

We’re also seeing increased interest in personal deposit lockers.

If a patient is admitted to the facility and is spending the night, these lockers are a great way to safely store valuable possessions.

The same applies to staff – not only can they store personal items, but these lockers can be stocked with clean scrubs or other assets that staff need to ensure efficient operations and thus reduce the time spent searching for daily assets.

Additionally, these lockers can be used to store weapons.

We have the capability to RFID-tag items, which can add a layer of security to sensitive assets like firearms or tasers for hospital security/police officers.

These lockers also help those facilities to stay in compliance with regulations for storing weapons.

Are compliance regulations strict within healthcare and if so, are these systems helping facilities meet regulations?

Yes, smart key cabinets and asset management lockers can not only track who checked out which item from where and when, but, most importantly, why they did so.

On the cabinet or locker interface, users can input the reason for checking out a certain asset, be it for shift work, training, maintenance, etc., which automatically creates an audit trail of their usage in real time.

Not only does that give administrators a 10,000-foot view of all assets in circulation at once, but it also provides a report they can produce for auditors, who often show up unannounced and thus helps keep the facility within regulations.

What are the typical incidents that lead facilities to consider this type of technology?

By far, the most common incidents are lost or stolen keys.

I spoke with a customer whose initial response, when I asked about what they did when they lost a key, was simply, “We cut new ones.”

Each key within a facility, no matter what it unlocks, is a liability if it ends up in the wrong hands.

It’s shocking how many facilities don’t know this type of technology exists or aren’t prioritizing key management and as such, are leaving themselves vulnerable to threats.

Not only is it a risk that could directly impact your staff and patients, but it could also hurt your stakeholders, including financial supporters.

In many cases, the biggest ones have their names on the side of facility buildings, and if there’s a security incident, that could negatively impact any support from that donor moving forward.

While there are advancements regarding electronic access control, only about 15 – 20% are entirely online.

That leaves the majority of access connected to keys, including in fleet management, and if there isn’t a main, or even backup key, readily available in the case of an emergency, that could put peoples’ lives in danger.

How important is it for healthcare facilities to implement solutions that can be easily integrated?

Even though healthcare facilities often have multiple sites, they usually share similar resources – doctors or staff typically serve at different locations within the same system.

It’s therefore important that their single access badge be integrated not only with the general access control system, but also any key cabinets and asset management lockers that are in use.

That’s one less system that employees and administrators have to monitor and on-board to if everything is communicating with a central network.

Also, it makes it easier to deactivate a user when they leave, which, again, eliminates a potential security risk.

What’s the biggest takeaway for healthcare facilities regarding key and asset management solutions?

Administrators need to realize that they’re the experts in what they do – they’re operating self-sufficient, mini cities and they understand the intricacies of each department.

As such, it needs to be a top-down approach when implementing security and access solutions.

Don’t just consider a solution on a singular need – view it from the lens of a building-wide approach and the benefits can be felt across multiple departments simultaneously.

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