Niscayah leverages healthcare expertise to guide St. Joseph’s Hospital through security upgrade.
Background
St. Joseph’s Hospital is part of the St. Joseph’s-Baptist Health Care system, a pioneering community health alliance that brings together St. Joseph’s Hospital, St. Joseph’s Women’s Hospital and St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital of Tampa, and South Florida Baptist Hospital in Plant City. St. Joseph’s Hospital has served the health care needs of the Tampa Bay community since 1934, and is the largest non-profit health care provider in Hillsborough County.
For many of the country’s growing regional healthcare systems, making investments to ensure the security and safety of staff, patients and visitors is an integral component of healthy growth. Nowhere is this more paramount than within St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, Florida, a multi-hospital organization embarking on an ambitious, five-year security enhancement project to upgrade its security systems and procedures.
The project, designed by Niscayah in conjunction with hospital security staff and executive management, will help the hospital (the state’s fifth-largest such facility) meet the ever changing security challenges with a system that leverages the hospital’s existing infrastructure to work with new investments in scalable, state-of-the-art video surveillance and access control technology.
Client’s challenge
St. Joseph’s Hospital is part of the BayCare Health System and houses three separate facilities on its 38-acre campus — St. Joseph’s Hospital, St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital and St. Joseph’s Women’s Hospital. With ongoing renovations to all three hospital buildings, as well as the design and construction of St. Joseph’s North, a new hospital opening in 2009, it was necessary to identify and address current security concerns of the existing campus but also incorporate new construction as part of the five-year plan.
“We knew we needed technical advice on how to leverage a security system upgrade into the best investment for the future,” said Dodd Day, Manager, Safety, Security and Emergency Preparedness for St. Joseph’s Hospital. “We knew we needed to improve our security systems, but we didn’t know what technology to choose. Niscayah did an excellent job of developing solutions for the hospital’s security and safety needs that will make the most of our existing equipment while keeping us current with new technology.”
How we helped
Niscayah conducted a comprehensive risk assessment of all of the St. Joseph’s Hospital facilities and worked with hospital security staff to identify priority areas where technology could be deployed to enhance security. That assessment led to a five-year process of improvements that, when culminated, will result in a complete IP and server-based system that will utilize the hospital’s existing IT network.
One major focus of the security upgrade is the deployment of digital video surveillance and network-based digital recording, using the hospital’s existing network. Acting on advice from Niscayah, Day and his team decided to forgo an investment into DVR technology in favor of network video recorders and a server-based architecture. By virtue of this approach, the hospital is able to maintain central monitoring at one facility through a hub and spoke system.
By the end of the project’s first year, a total of 96 video surveillance cameras will be operational throughout the hospital and the initial stages of the server architecture will be in place, according to Don Knowles, Account Executive, Healthcare Division, Niscayah. Nearly 40 percent of the cameras are part of the hospital’s existing video surveillance system and they are outfitted with encoders.
“We have a terrific partnership with St. Joseph’s Hospital’s IT department and sought their approval of the project from the beginning,” Knowles said. Of particular interest to IT personnel was the ability to deploy the same off-the-shelf server and storage hardware already used throughout the IT network of BayCare Health System, St. Joseph’s Hospital’s parent organization, which includes nine non-profit hospitals in the Tampa Bay area. “Our approach allows the client to use hardware they are familiar with,” Knowles said. “Instead of being locked into buying proprietary hardware, they can continue purchasing off the shelf components through their IT reseller.”
A longtime partner of St. Joseph’s Hospital, as well as several other healthcare organizations in the Southeast, Knowles and his Niscayah team know they will be adjusting the hospital’s five-year plan several times throughout the security upgrade.
“You have to be able to adapt to the changes that are going to occur within the organization and not be stagnant on your use of technology; it’s got to be a living breathing project that adapts with the changing needs of the hospital,” explains Knowles. “With our deployment of IP technology at St. Joseph’s Hospital, the open architecture will allow us to easily add scale and additional capabilities to the system at any time.”
The results
Niscayah developed a security solution utilizing existing technology and enhanced it with upgrades in digital video surveillance and networked-based digital recording to create a more secure environment.
Consultation, design and installation services at St. Joseph’s are performed through the Niscayah Healthcare Solutions Group, a specialized business unit that works within the hospital and healthcare community to offer integrated security solutions and innovative risk management solutions. Through a comprehensive security concept that includes asset tracking along with alarm notification, alarm monitoring, access control and video surveillance, healthcare organizations gain operational efficiencies, lower institutional liability, and reduction of operating costs. Each department in the hospital can benefit from this comprehensive solution that has a clearly defined return on investment and return on risk.
Core benefits
- Safer, more secure environment for staff and patients.
- Maximizes use of existing infrastructure and technology.
- Open architecture gives freedom to use any hardware; nonproprietary.
- Comprehensive security concept enables hospital to gain operational efficiencies, lower institutional liability and reduce operating costs.
- Staff uses hardware they are familiar with.
Not only will the project modernize security within St. Joseph’s Hospital, it will also deliver a significant number of operational benefits to the hospital. Providing a safe and secure work environment affords a competitive advantage for the retention of nurses, who, according to federal workplace violence statistics, top the list of workers likely to be victims of violence at work. Within St. Joseph’s Women’s Hospital, which boasts one of the busiest labor and delivery units in the Tampa Bay area, the network-based video surveillance system will enhance existing physical security measures to provide a safe and secure environment for newborns and their mothers.
Upcomming developments
Other areas identified with particular risks that will also be addressed as part of the five-year plan include pharmacy areas of the hospital as well as systems to mitigate the theft of medical equipment, such as endoscopes, Day said. Asset tracking of equipment will be first deployed in St. Joseph’s North, and then potentially rolled out to other facilities.
General use areas of the hospital will also receive special attention. The hospital’s new 10-story parking garage, one of five such facilities on the St. Joseph’s Hospital campus, was identified as being vulnerable to vehicle crime during the risk assessment. A video surveillance system will be used in the new garage to help reduce this risk.
The cafeteria, which serves hospital staff and visitors, will be renovated and outfitted with a video surveillance system to prevent walkouts and internal loss, Knowles said. “In a hospital setting, you have to ensure that you understand the needs of each individual department, from the children’s hospital to the women’s center to the maintenance department,” explains Knowles. “As a security provider, it’s our job to make security improvements meet the needs of the occupants as best we can while still adhering to the standards outlined by our clients.