Stanley Security Strengthens Health-Care Facility’s Security Vital Signs
Stanley Security stepped in to provide Lakeland Regional Health with a smart, sensible, cost-effective security system, earning the firm SSI‘s Integrated Installation of the Year trophy.
Stanley Security's Paul Baratta (l) and Brad Humphries (r) have partnered with Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center's David LaRose (c).
Florida’s Lakeland Regional Health (LRH) was looking for state-of-the-art security technology for its for its 851-bed Medical Center and other campuses. Its existing video surveillance system relied on 168 analog, standard-definition cameras and a companion access control system. Covering 334 doors, it required excessive manual intervention for the most basic operations, such as adding a new employee.
LRH stakeholders were eager to embrace a flexible, streamlined, enterprise-class security platform.
“Our previous security system served us well for many years. We were looking to expand and provide leading-edge functionality as we grow our health system and campuses,” says LRH Security Director David LaRose. “We needed to manage all aspects of facility access and security to the utmost degree. Our top priority was to protect patients, visitors and staff, in addition to crucial, lifesaving assets and property.”
Consequently, LRH sought recommendations to address its growing security technology needs. Facility management was advised in competitive bids to completely gut the existing infrastructure, replacing everything, right down to the wiring, with the “latest and greatest” technology. It was to be a monumental task – with a budget and project timeline to match.
LaRose worked closely with the LRH selection committee to determine the best solution. Stanley, a proven expert in a multitude of vertical markets such as health care, was invited onsite to conduct its own assessment. Stanley willingly and enthusiastically participated in a number of face-to-face presentations and question-and-answer exchanges during an extremely rigorous vetting process.
“This was an instance where the customer required significant upgrades to its security system without eliciting substantial cost,” says Stanley Security Vice President, Healthcare Security Paul Baratta. “This project really came down to the level of cost efficiency and limitless innovation we could provide to meet the customer’s specific needs.”
Stanley demonstrated its expertise by designing a solution that effectively met LRH’s needs with significant cost savings as compared to competing bids.
“We told them, ‘Give us a week.’ We worked around the clock, reviewing everything on the facility, the customer’s budget, needs and long-term security goals in order to come up with an intelligent, cost-effective design that would be scalable for further growth,” says Stanley Vice President, Strategic Healthcare Accounts Brett Curtis. “Our hard work and creativity were rewarded when Stanley was selected as the system vendor.”
The solution hinged on combining existing wiring with updated technology to deliver the value LRH needed as opposed to spending a lot of time and labor rebuilding the infrastructure for each system. This approach would also minimize impact on the hospital’s daily operations, and ultimately propel Stanley Security to capture an SSI Integrated Installation of the Year Award.
A More Discriminating Design
LRH employs more than 5,000 team members and its facilities include not only the hospital and Florida’s busiest single site emergency department, but also a cancer center, various rehabilitation clinics, doctors’ offices, pharmacies and other patient care centers. Utilizing a consultative process as a proactive security partner, Stanley representatives held many meetings with LRH to ensure full comprehension of the health system’s goals and objectives, as well as understand the security systems that were currently in place.
“This is one of the largest hospitals in the region. Therefore, Stanley wasn’t just concerned with protecting assets; we had to account for personnel and patients as well – some of which are moving in and out of the ED at a rapid pace,” says Baratta. “We needed to design a solution with the highest level of coverage that would keep authorized personnel, patients and visitors safe, while being sure not to disrupt the quality of care and treatment.”
Stanley’s site survey found LRH had a mixture of disparate systems that included a 330-door Picture Perfect 2.0 access control system, 168-camera CCTV system with multiple DVRs from multiple manufacturers and an older Aiphone intercom system. The objective was to convert those systems to current technology supported by enterprise-class platforms.
By taking the time to become familiar with the existing resources, Stanley was able to devise a solution that met LRH’s needs without spending money on anything unnecessary, such as rewiring an entire video surveillance system. In this case, the integrator simply placed media encoders on either end of the system so the control room monitors could display the full capabilities of new HD cameras.
“With the way Stanley designed the project, we came in remarkably under budget while making a more robust system,” says Curtis. “For example, with the video surveillance system, another vendor was only prepared to install 32 new IP cameras; we did a complete facelift of the access control solution and installed 168 new IP cameras.”
This extraordinarily cost-effective approach has cemented Stanley’s ongoing relationship as LRH’s preferred provider, with opportunities like revamping electronic doors and hardware on the horizon. Keeping the existing infrastructure in place also lessened the need for additional staff training to minimize downtime.
“We knew it was essential not to focus on short-term priorities. Instead we tackled the bigger, overall picture,” adds Curtis. “This couldn’t be a circumstance where LRH would only be ready right now to handle a threat or event; we needed to consider what could be done to bolster their readiness and preparedness five, 10, 15 years down the road.”
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About the Author
Scott Goldfine
Scott Goldfine is the marketing director for Elite Interactive Solutions. He is the former editor-in-chief and associate publisher of Security Sales & Integration. He can be reached at [email protected].
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