Taking on Hospitals as Security Patients

While security is not the first thing that comes to mind when people think of medical facilities, the spirit of providing safety creates a natural partnership between electronic security and hospitals.

Hospitals and other medical campuses need to allow the free movement and access of the general population while keeping everyone within safe and secure. It’s like allowing the fox in the hen house, but making sure it doesn’t snatch a chicken.

“If you think about when you go into the hospital, we take away your belongings, we force you to give up your clothes and put a robe on you behind an unlocked door, so hospitals do need to provide a reasonably safe environment,” says Fred Roll, a security consultant to hospitals.

Like many potential clients, hospitals have a greater awareness now for security than they did before 9/11 — but that doesn’t make it any easier to find leads for medical facility clients. Getting into the hospital market takes legwork, research and building a quality reputation. The value proposition applies to hospitals much more than it may for other clients, and such facilities may opt to hang on to legacy equipment longer than most.

Still, if one can gain the confidence of a hospital’s security director and provide top-notch service, the medical market may hold some of the most loyal customers a dealer or integrator could ask for.

Finding Willing Customers Can Be Painstaking
Hospitals aren’t too hard to find. Medical facilities are usually multistory structures that can be the most prominent building in a town’s landscape, and blue road signs with a white “H” lead people to them.

The signs aren’t so easy to find, however, when it comes to locating a hospital in need of a new security installation or service.

Going beyond the fact medical facilities are prone to hang on to old security systems longer than other clients (see sidebar on page 68 of November issue), hospitals that do budget in security improvements may already have an installer they trust and rely upon. Those that don’t will give first glance to a dealer or integrator that already has a reputation in the hospital market.

Enterprise Security Systems of Charlotte, N.C., is one such integrator that has built a reputation with several loyal medical facility clients. But it had to start somewhere.

“You just really have to keep knocking on doors … more so than other markets. You need to make an effort to get in front of those people and develop a reputation,” says Enterprise Security Systems President Kurt Kottkamp. “Once you do a great job at one hospital, word will get to the next. But it’s a tough slog until then.”

The main contact when it comes to a hospital will usually be its security director. The person in charge of making sure a medical campus is safe and secure needs to “know their stuff.” They have to find creative ways to provide top-notch security on the lowest budget.

“I go to the ASIS show at least every other year and keep up with the technology,” says Robert Morse, security director for Richland Memorial Hospital in Columbia, S.C. Kottkamp is among those who appreciates dealing with a customer who doesn’t necessarily need a layman’s explanation of how a system is going to function.

“Some of the sharpest security people I’ve encountered are security directors at hospitals,” Kottkamp says.

Cold Calls Often Result in a Chilly Reception
When looking for a medical client, remember that even while security is a higher priority at hospitals than it was before, it is still way down the totem pole compared to the need for medical equipment and paying the salaries of top-notch doctors. The choice is clear when a hospital needs to choose between funding a new security system and buying the latest X-ray machine.

Cold calls can truly be a crapshoot in this case. Medical facilities are usually either content with the systems they have, or already have an installer they trust. Much of the time, they work directly with the manufacturers and use only installers from their dealer programs, leaving many independent installers out of the loop.

Lisa Pryse oversees security for the WakeMed network of seven medical centers around Raleigh, N.C. Pryse has to worry about overseeing both campus police and electronic security for all of WakeMed’s campus.

She doesn’t have time for unscheduled sales pitches.

“Cold calls interrupt my day,” Pryce says. “I would rather seek it out on my own.” It may be a tough pill for some installers to swallow, but they may need to wait for a medical facility to come to them rather than the other way around.

Pryce says a main outlet for security directors to find potential installers and equipment are seminars held by associations dealing with hospital security. One example is the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS), which holds an annual seminar where exhibitors can put their security products and services on display.

To Find Projects, Look for the Cranes and Scaffolds
Something else dealers and integrators interested in hospital work may want to look for is scaffolding, cranes and cement trucks. Many hospitals are in a perpetual state of renovation and expansion. Security is naturally one of the areas hospitals look at while planning construction and renovation projects.

“A lot of the security systems are project-based. They will make one big expenditure to upgrade their system,” Kottkamp says. “That’s the opportunity. So many of the hospitals we work with are expanding like crazy.”

Still, it will be important to identify construction projects early on — even making occasional calls to medical facility public relations departments to see if any renovations or expansions are in the planning stages.

One way to get a leg-up is by keeping up with construction grants granted by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. HRSA provides resources to expand health care facilities across the country.

An easy way to find which medical facilities are receiving HRSA grants is through the grants area of HRSA’s Web site at www.hrsa.gov/grants. There are additional government and private bid opportunities available on the LeadTracker Web site at www.ssileadtracker.com.

Providing Peace of Mind Is a Customer Service
Once a security contractor finds out about a medical bid, how do they win it? More than likely, the battle won’t be won on what a dealer or integrator can do, but what they have done before. Reputation is everything when it comes to hospital projects.

“It mostly boils down to the confidence level in the provider in their area,” says Roll, who serves as president of IAHSS and leads hospital security consultant firm Roll Enterprises Inc. “The system is only as good as the people who put it in and service it.” Roll says security directors and installers alike need to think of security as part of the customer service function of a hospital. Giving hospital staff and patients an added sense of safety can help boost a medical facility’s reputation as much as clean walls, up-to-date magazines in the waiting rooms and premium care.

Best Systems for Hospitals Mean Giving Them Best Value
The process any consumer goes through comes down to getting the best bang for their buck. That doesn’t mean settling for the lowest price or being resistant to the highest price — it just mea
ns getting the best product that fits within their budget.

Hospital security directors use the value proposition much more than other security clients. “I need to trust the vendor to say not what the most expensive or easy solution is, but what is the most practical solution for a hospital. I want these folks to educate me. I have a finite budget,” says WakeMed’s Pryce. “It doesn’t have to be the lowest bid; it has to be the best value for our dollar.”

The one exception, according to Pryce, is public and government-run hospital facilities. Like many other government contracts, they will usually only be looking for the lowest bid.

Still, a low bid with value is likely to win out above a low bid without it. Educating the customer could be key to showing how a medical facility could get the best system for its money, which could make integration a vital component of many hospital projects.

“A lot of them are going to have alarms. A lot of them are going to have CCTV. A lot of them are going to have tagging. They don’t really understand how these could be pulled together,” Roll says. “That would be the big educational aspect integrators and dealers need to bring to the forefront.”

Integration proved to be a key selling point to Morse at Richland Memorial Hospital. In the hospital’s pharmacy, Ingersoll-Rand Recognition Systems hand readers were integrated for perimeter access with existing mag-stripe and HID proximity readers through Lenel software. Meanwhile, the hospital’s overall CCTV system consisting of Pelco, Panasonic and Lenel equipment has been integrated with the facility’s overall access control system.

And Morse won’t stop there. “I’m looking for a system that can integrate the other systems I have, not just another standalone,” he says. “I need something to expand with me. That’s key.”

Regulations Specific to Hospitals, Durability Among Installation Issues

Dealers and integrators need to be up-to-speed on security regulations specific to hospitals. While the security director will be well versed on these standards, it might be an advantage for the installer to have a general overview of them as well.

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) is the nation’s predominant standards setting and accrediting body in health care, and has several standards concerning a hospital’s security system. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) also has specific language for providing a secure environment in hospitals, especially when it comes to neonatal and pediatric departments.

For obvious reasons, medical centers will be very conscious of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations, and the installer should as well. There are also state OSHA standards to worry about.

Since equipment like readers will be readily used by the public, installations at hospitals have to have long-term durability. That means strong housings for cameras and vandal-resistant access control equipment.

Access control systems are vital for hospitals to keep Joe Public from just walking into an operating room or keeping drugs away from those who would abuse them.

But that must be balanced against the need for a free flow of people within a medical facility. For a patient being rushed to surgery, seconds could mean the difference between life and death, and they can’t afford the lost time it would take for the operating room staff to find a prox card.

“We did a project with an OR [operating room] that got redesigned a dozen times,” Kottkamp says. “It worked in a certain area but we realized with the flow of personnel, it wouldn’t work. In an OR, you’re dealing with personnel who are prepped and sterilized so they can’t fish out an access card.”

This would seem like a natural area for biometrics, though Morse soon discovered at Richland that even that may not be the answer. Complaints came down from the hospital’s infection control group that the multiple hands being put in the handreader were spreading germs.

“We’re starting to back off biometrics,” says Morse, who adds the solution is better perimeter protection. “Biometrics has had its good spots, but in other areas it’s a big cultural shift and you need employee buy-in.”

After Getting the Business, Service Is Key to Keeping It

Once a dealer or integrator gets the business of a medical facility, how do they keep it? The answer to that comes down to one word: service.

A relationship with a medical client can’t end after the installation is finished. Establishing quality service not only means keeping that facility’s business but gaining more medical clients as well.

“Those who provide service after the sale are the people I recommend to my counterparts. Being able to do it under the budget is one thing, but we always need to have a relationship after the sale,” Pryce says. “I will tell people that it may be a little more expensive to go with this vendor, but they are awesome and they follow up.”

Kottkamp says from his experience, there’s not a single, secret recipe to finding a medical client or winning their bid, but there is one way to keep a client and build a large customer base in the process.

“It all goes back to the value equation. You have to provide good service and back-up and document where you’re providing value and show it to them,” Kottkamp says. “Once you are working with the hospitals, you’re going to have a lot of add-ons and a relative large percentage of service calls. You’ll have a lot of opportunities to shine, but also a lot of opportunities to stumble.”

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