Stanley Security Strengthens Health-Care Facility’s Security Vital Signs

Collaboration Is Key

Stanley won the project in December 2013, broke ground on it in February 2014 and wrapped up the initial scope in phases eight months later. The strong relationship forged along the way is ongoing and at press time had surpassed 4,000 hours of labor. The integrator’s strength in the health-care field played a vital role in ensuring a smooth process for everyone.

Since the inherent need for security never diminishes, any security updates in a hospital need to be installed and brought online quickly. Access to supplies and key areas requires constant monitoring and management, and patient care adds further complexity.

“There’s also the issue of compliance, and not just adhering to regulatory standards governed by federal agencies, such as the Joint Commission and OSHA, but the internal regulations within the hospital itself,” says Baratta. “Each health-care facility has a safety department with its own rules, requirements and standardizing guidelines. For any integrator embarking on a health-care project, it’s imperative personnel are aware of current legislation to deploy an effective, compliant solution.”

As is the case with an installation of this scale and complexity, c
oordination was required among numerous stakeholders, managers and trades. The design of the solution also involved input from IT, nursing, administrative, talent/ HR and other departments. Encouraging this participation not only optimized the solution but, critically, gained buy-in.

“We heavily focused on making sure we worked directly with each department to be certain the new solution and programming levels met their needs,” says LaRose. “We wanted to open up a dialogue with all authorized personnel and department leaders within the facility to understand the unique workflow, and ensure the solution was supporting them and not enacted as a barrier.”

Database a Daunting Task

The video surveillance side of the solution is built around Avigilon’s Control Center 5.0 enterprise VMS. Stanley converted 168 existing analog cameras to new Avigilon high-performance IP cameras throughout the main hospital facility, including in common areas, hallways, treatment departments, the ED, nurse stations and administrative offices.

The facility was also provided with three 21TB servers for extensive video backup to accommodate the improved resolution, which has since grown to 16 servers as the program has developed further. Two Avigilon workstations were also installed to drive the video wall in the security operations center (SOC).

Stanley’s tactics for upgrading the access control system in many ways mirrored its frugal yet highly functional video strategy. Rather than rip out, rewire and replace all of the end user’s legacy control panels, the integrator utilized a migration panel that enabled the use of existing enclosures.

Software House’s C•CURE 9000 was installed on a LRH-provided virtual server as Stanley worked closely with the customer’s IT team to import the existing Picture Perfect database with all cardholder and badge information and employee pictures. The integrator built programming functionality such as doors, access levels, access rights, and system users and administrators. Stanley implemented a door access design based on system stakeholder access and security needs. It included naming conventions for all access devices, logical door groupings, role-based door access assignment, access alerts, and more.

As Baratta explains, the video and access systems were not without their challenges: “Overall, we had more than 200 network drops that needed to be coordinated, and additional drops for all 168 cameras tied into the access and video solutions. But perhaps our greatest challenge was cleaning up the existing database to input all 5,000+ employee profiles into the new system. The whole database was expertly purged of corrupted or in-complete data, duplicate or unusable templates and profiles.”

Biometric access control was also added to several sensitive areas, and a larger rollout is planned for completion by 2016. Mass notification and visitor management services were also integrated with LRH’s access control and intercom solutions. The latter involved installing an updated Aiphone intercom system. LaRose could not be more pleased with his facility’s new technology.

“The C•CURE 9000 platform is incredibly user-friendly, and in terms of IT it’s a very solid technology,” he says. “We’re finding something new every day that shows this solution brings even more to the table. The Control Center VMS came very highly recommended, and the cameras are reliable and offer an increasingly beneficial level of forensic value, surveillance recovery and evidentiary retrieval.”

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