Improving Physical Security for Healthcare Systems

With an uptick in workplace violence against healthcare workers, organizations must improve their security monitoring strategies to protect employees. A Missouri hospital is implementing panic buttons for nurses and other staff after a sharp increase in attacks by patients over the past year. Over the summer, an upstate New York healthcare system announced the deployment of security alert buttons for its workers.

One healthcare system CEO even penned an open letter to his community addressing the rising violence against healthcare workers and pleading for a stop to the assaults. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, workplace violence against healthcare workers has been steadily increasing, according to 2018 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Recently, the violence seems to have become amplified, with incidents reported in California, Texas and New Mexico.

Physical security for healthcare systems is evolving along with changing needs. It’s no longer enough to know the location of secure entry points; workers need to be able to track movement through those entry points into facilities. Technology has also evolved to keep up with these changing needs, with more sophisticated video monitoring, modernized alerts and flexible solutions that can adapt to diverse settings.