Digital access answers the healthcare sector’s evolving physical security challenges
Security stakes are high at healthcare premises. Patients deserve privacy and safety, while the buildings themselves must be welcoming spaces. They remain open beyond the usual “office hours” yet the protection of drugs and confidential data is more critical than you would find in most offices. Even a seemingly minor breach requires investigation.
We ask too much of traditional mechanical security if we expect it to enable this work efficiently. Instead, digitalizing access brings real-time, remote control, flexible user permissions, one-click user audits, and easy integration with fire, CCTV and other critical systems.
Digitalization makes healthcare sites – including complex, dispersed premises like hospitals – more secure and the security workflows around them more efficient.
Yet traditional electronic security can bring new challenges. Traditional solutions often require cabling or wiring. This makes it an expensive choice. It may even prove impossible to retrofit, especially at non-standard openings.
A more convenient, reliable and cost-effective solution, which does not sacrifice building security, is offered by wireless digital access.
A digital way to effective, integrated access management
Wireless devices offer a convenient upgrade or replacement for any system which relies on mechanical or wired/magnetic locks. Choosing wireless devices makes it much simpler to implement a customizable, future-proofed, digital solution – helping save system admin time and reducing costs.
Wireless devices make it cost-effective to add digital control to many more areas of a healthcare building. With online management, facility managers can monitor doors and other openings at any time and from anywhere. They can view the status of medicine cupboards or server racks from the same software interface as doors and gates.
Wireless digital devices can control access to almost any opening, from busy entrances and perimeter gates to mobile Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (EPMA) carts. Even small cylinder sizes or non-standard cam-types, as found on bedside cabinets or medicine storage, can be integrated into a single, efficient digital access system.
For greater user convenience, credentials can include RFID smartcards, programmable smart keys or mobile keys stored securely on a smartphone.
Innovative digital solution adds convenience and control
To ensure security and operational efficiency at the new Centre Hospitalier Métropole Savoie (CHMS), managers installed Aperio® wireless locking, part of the Digital Access Solutions suite from ASSA ABLOY. The devices integrate online with an ARD access management system. Because Aperio locks are fitted without wires and powered by standard batteries, the hospital could introduce more layers of security without incurring excessive installation or operating costs, including for sensitive offices and drug stores.
Staff no longer carry big bunches or waste their time hunting for keys. Their individual permissions are stored on a programmable RFID credential. All devices integrate natively with the central system. Wired and wireless access points at are managed together, with real-time logs, remote door opening and free time-slot management.
“Having just a single badge — and not having to carry around heavy keys — has been a major advantage for us,” says Béatrice Dequidt, Health Executive at CHMS. “We have implemented internal HR management procedures, creating badges that are automatically integrated into ARD’s operating software,” adds Alain Gestin, CHMS’s IT Systems Architect.
Managing contractors efficiently with programmable digital keys
Programmable smart keys put the advantages of digital access into a familiar form: they reinvent the key for the 21st century, making it equipped to implement modern access management.
At the Marin Hospital in Hendaye, mechanical technology made it difficult to track who was accessing sensitive areas like treatment rooms and medicine stores. Keys and passes issued to employees and contractors were another source of risk. They often remained in circulation beyond their approved use period. To trace staff and external contractor movements into sensitive areas, a digital access system with inbuilt audit trail capability was essential.
The hospital chose another ASSA ABLOY digital access solution, eCLIQ, which is based on programmable keys. Marin’s security team gradually rolled it out to all care and logistics buildings, including drug stores, labs and other sensitive or confidential areas. Wire-free eCLIQ offers easy installation without the expense or disruption of laying cabling. An installer simply swaps the old mechanical cylinder for an eCLIQ one.
External service providers now use an intelligent key which automatically expires after a pre-defined period. This is much safer than relying on a contractor to return their mechanical key every time.
“The choice of this solution is based on reliability and simplicity of implementation for a site that covers 11 hectares,” explains Yves Bourdon, the hospital’s Security Director. “It is the only solution that can equip more than 1,500 doors with quick and wireless installation.”
To learn more about Digital Access Solutions from ASSA ABLOY, visit https://www.assaabloy.com/group/emeia/campaigns/digitalwithconfidence
