SAN FRANCISCO—Athena Security, a developer of AI-driven physical security solutions, has announced the launch of its new Hospital Visitor Management System (VMS) on the Apple iPad or more simply, Hospital VMS.
Purpose-built to meet the critical needs of healthcare facilities, Athena’s Hospital VMS is the first Apple iPad solution in the industry to offer seamless offline capabilities a feature the company suggests, ensures that hospitals stay operational and secure, even amidst internet interruptions due to down servers, power outages or natural disasters.
“Hospitals can’t afford downtime,” says Lisa Falzone, president and co-founder of Athena Security. “Our new VMS is designed on the Apple iPad to be always up and running, much like our last company’s solution, Revel’s iPad Point of Sale for restaurants, which changed the history of POS. We stay up even during natural disasters, internet outages or cyberattacks. In a world where seconds matter, we’ve made resilience the default.”
Hospital VMS Combats the Insecurities of Cyberattacks
Cyberattacks on hospital systems are increasing and mitigation is critical. According to the American Hospital Association, the February 2024 cyberattack on Change Healthcare, “disrupted health care operations on an unprecedented national scale, endangering patients’ access to care, disrupting critical clinical and eligibility operations, and threatening the solvency of the nation’s provider network.”
Five months later in July of 2024, over 750 U.S. hospitals experienced a network disruption as a result of the CrowdStrike outage– and more than 200 of those hospitals experienced outages that directly affected patients, according to a University of California San Diego report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network.
Athena Security emphasizes that unlike some industries, hospital outages can have life-threatening consequences–especially when a delay of hours, or even minutes, can increase mortality rates for stroke, heart attack and other patients seeking emergency care.
Key Features of the New Hospital VMS System Include:
- Always-On, Offline Mode: The system functions with or without internet—enabling check-in/check-out, badge printing, and visitor logging even during connectivity or server disruptions. Data syncs automatically once back online.
- End-to-End Security: The Hospital VMS provides everything from pre-registration to real-time watchlist screening to protect patients, staff, and visitors with client server certificates for encrypted data handling, and robust access control integration. The system works in tandem with Athena’s proprietary H-Sheild, a private, authenticated and authoritative DNS platform that protects a healthcare organization’s most critical digital assets, PHI and PII information. H-Shield is an intelligent gatekeeper at the most fundamental point of network communication–Visitor Management.
- Customized Workflows: User experience workflows can be customized for each healthcare department: User experiences can be tailored for different visitor types—contractors, family members, vendors, or VIPs. Hospitals can build protocols that match their compliance needs and operational goals.
- Nationwide Predator Lists: The Hospital VMS protects against individuals listed on nationwide child predator lists and other perpetrator lists, so that hospitals are alerted upon entry, even when offline.
Athena Security adds that its Hospital VMS is capable of integrating into a hospital’s AI-powered Weapon Detection System, providing hospitals with a unified solution to manage both visitor access and physical threats in real time.
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