Hospital Security System

 

The industrial revolution in characterized by amalgamation of technologies that is fading the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. The application of current technologies within healthcare sector has the potential to transform the way care is delivered improving the patient experience.

Comprehensive medical units and hospitals demand year around security. Hospital security systems are often the most intricate that requires physical concerns, such as intrusion detection and access control, as well as concern of digital information and IP security. Ideal hospital security system is a must to protect their patients and assets. It is important for the hospital to ensure a safe environment for all patients and staff members. While physical safety is always a primary concern, protecting tangible equipment and supplies as well as intellectual property and electronic data.

An affective measure must be taken by the hospital towards saving energy and generate reliable power for life-saving equipment and boosting patients’ wellbeing. The hospitals must modernize the power control network to offer necessary flexibility to power consumption, enabling an uninterrupted flow of energy at all time. An intelligent control system has to be installed to ensure that the critical areas such as operation theaters and intensive care have a reliable power supply, with any faults quickly identified and necessary action taken to rectify without interrupting patient care even in the event of a local power cut.

Healthcare centers contain high value facilities and equipment, volatile situation involving the safety of people, a diverse array of space, building and departments which contains a variety of people – staff, patients and visitors. A proper security system has to be installed to keep an eye on drug and prescription theft and to secure the surgeries. All the electronic and power systems must be incorporated within the hospital design to ensure that the building performance is optimized.

The security of the hospital premises can be significantly increased by installing automated number plate recognition system (ANPR). The installation of ANPR increases the security by differentiating between the hospital staff vehicle and the visitor’s vehicle and restricting the unauthorized vehicles. Another way to ensure the security system of the hospital is by implementing the biometric system and the use of intercom or two way pager to communicate with the staff in emergency.

The effective way of managing the hospital security operations can be achieved by installing integrated security platform. It utilizes the web browser interface with a built in early monitoring system that monitor operations non-stop like identify suspect stories and notifies the management with precise information to response. It generates intelligent and informed timely alerts for the administrators on computer and mobile devices. This system enables quicker response time and guided response system in emergency situations making life easier for security and the administrators, secure to patients and employees and productive for the hospital.

The integrated security platform enrolls all employees and the visitors on common data base using their identity proof and then links to the patient information system with a workflow based automated system. Emails, messages and notifications must be enabled on a centralized command and control center.

Hospital houses a tremendous amount of personal data, including financial data, social security numbers and health information of millions of patients. The use of web browser increases the possible chances of getting vulnerable to a cyber-attack. The healthcare system must protect itself from becoming the victim of a cyber-attack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surveillance a key component of ‘Smart City’

Two years after the launch of Smart City Mission by the Central Government, the vision of smart city has already begun to take shape. The materialization of the project is validated in Pune’s impressive hi-tech command and control centre, developed to manage the city’s increasing road traffic and oversee water and electricity supply through provision of central based surveillance. A key term to be noted here is surveillance.

The Centre is investing Rs 1.9 lakh crore across 89 cities as part of smart city project with surveillance poised to be a key factor of such a makeover. Notably, the success of the smart city project in Pune and other major cities is carefully balanced on the Centre’s ability to manage video-based city surveillance and drone based aerial surveillance among a host of other provisions.

In the Indian context, surveillance takes centre stage in the conceptualization of the smart city project as the government tries to tackle the growing burden of security threats. While the potential of video-based surveillance in leading the smart city project to fruition remains unprecedented, its relevance is of little doubt.

The applicability of video-based surveillance in ensuring safety is fast gaining momentum with an increase in the drive to build smart cities. This can be empirically corroborated with a Seagate survey conducted in 2016. The Seagate survey exhibited that Indian organisations employ 249 cameras on average for video surveillance on their premises. While this number is impressively the same as other developing countries, it fares considerably low when compared to a developed nation as the US, where organisations use 349 cameras on average.

Against this backdrop, IP-based cameras and security designs, which form the fundamental aspect of surveillance are tipped to play a pivotal role in the coming years. Although the centre is able to provide a wide network of cameras for traffic and security purposes, the technical know-how and expertise required to coherently formulate a security design is still lacking and the government must take constructive steps towards it.

In an Indian smart city, surveillance will play an effective role in the proper functioning of different aspects. Therefore, without relevant knowledge of security design, the centre may find its investment reaping considerably low returns, leading to a redundant project with little to show for in terms of results.

To ensure projected returns on the investment, the centre must shift its focus from a treatment-based model to a prevention based model. Planning ahead and formulating a sound framework, in addition to provision of infrastructure, will be critical in this regard.

Another important factor pertaining to surveillance in smart city is the collection of large amount of video data and the centre’s response behaviour. The escalation in video data implores the important question of accumulating the increasing amount of data in the form of storage. This, in turn, will pave the ground for the growth of big data analytics that would be vital in obtaining relevant results to assist the centre in making correct and constructive decisions.

A shared information will gather value and become intelligence. Translating this data into actionable intelligence will be prudent for the long term success of ‘Smart City’.

Thermography: The Next Chapter In Surveillance

Infrared (IR) cameras offer a unique advantage of turning the invisible to visible. They efficiently negate our inability to see what is outside our visual range by capturing a wider spectrum of light known as infrared. These cameras efficiently capture heat signatures of the objects and convert them into colours which can be easily perceived by the human eye. Every creature or object emits heat which is readable by these cameras in the form of heat signatures. The image produced by these heat signatures is known as a thermogram. Thermograms are then further assessed with the help of thermal imaging cameras and compatible software. This unique advantage of IR cameras makes them the perfect complement to any video, audio and physical presence security network.

IR cameras are becoming increasingly popular in the security sector owing to their many applications. They provide assessable and advanced solutions for thermal imaging which makes them ideal for mass-screening individuals at airports to scan for epidemic outbreaks such as Swine Flu, Zika Virus, Ebola Virus, etc. Prevention and control of epidemic outbreaks is becoming exacting for many countries as the recent Ebola epidemic showcased how easily infectious diseases can cross borders. However, more and more measures are being put in place to overcome this challenge and IR cameras are becoming an important tool in this regard.

Other applications of IP cameras include industrial and commercial application, military and defence surveillance and medical imaging. Military and defence constitute a large part of IR application with the industry tipped to make over one-third of the total IR camera market size by 2024. This is because of the unique properties of IR Cameras, like ruggedness, reliability, and extreme temperature withstanding-ability, which IP-based cameras do not offer.

These properties have also impressed the law enforcement sector in the US as the recent years have witnessed a sharp rise in the use of thermal imaging cameras to identify criminals and fugitives. These unique properties enable the law enforcement to capture images in bad light, tough weather conditions, or assist them in their overall surveillance systems.

The global IR camera market is speculated to grow at a CAGR of 9% from 2016 to 2024. On the basis of regions, North America and Asia Pacific make for the most share of the market for IR cameras. North America is predicted to be one of the leading regions by the year 2024. Higher adoption of video surveillance cabling is yet another regional driver. Asia Pacific is expected to generate over USD 1.7 billion in 2024. This can be ascribed to high consumption in defence applications across India, South Korea, and Japan.

Another reason for the high demands of these cameras is a number of personal uses associated with them. Thermal imaging cameras are used in home safety and security, for identifying inconsistencies in the cooling system, gas leaks, chinks in the electrical system, and many other household operations.

Thermal cameras are an economical solution to broad area, limited visibility and low/no light situations which require personnel, employees, students and individuals to move through an area, making them a great surveillance prospect in the years to come.