Health care facilities are often dynamic places, designed for patient care, not as a high security environment, so in this context it can be challenging maintaining full situational awareness.
Using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques, the iCetana solution learns and filters out routine motion, showing only anomalous or unusual behaviour allowing operators to focus on events that matter and respond in real-time to both precursor activities and incidents.
Health care facilities also have special requirements safeguarding controlled medication and in this regard Video surveillance with analytics can play an important role as part of the suite of security tools used.
iCetana allows operators to be alerted to potential issues in real-time helping mitigate potential physical and reputational risks to the institution. The solution has been implemented at over 35 sites on four continents, helping clients harness the rich data streams from their existing security networks and turning that data into improved situational awareness and deeper operational insights.
Key Challenges in a Health Environment
| ISSUE | IMPACT |
|---|---|
| Lack of monitoring due to budget constraints / lack of staff | Critical events are missed Lack of response results in cameras being ignored, magnifying the number of security incidents |
| Security team has too many cameras to look at | Critical events are missed Operators can be overloaded and therefore be unable to work effectively |
| Large area to manage security, with possibility of events occurring anywhere | Lack of situational awareness can lead to slow security responses. |
| Cameras in controlled areas are triggered by routine events (birds etc.) | Cameras end up being ignored Critical events may end up being missed Attention is diverted away from important events |
| Too much video to review historical footage | Productivity impact as staff must be taken off other work to search through footage (time consuming and costly) |
| Lack of situational awareness, despite extensive camera networks | Unable to deploy security staff to problem spots in time. |
| Cameras may be obscured or tampered with | Loss of record of area of surveillance Precursor indictation of potential event |
iCetana Use Cases
| TYPE OF ACITIVTY | IMPACT |
|---|---|
| Violence | Attacks on staff by patients or visitors result in personal injury and staff turnover. Health care staff are highly qualified, so their loss can impact on patient care. |
| Vandalism | Damage to property and clean-up and rectification costs. This detracts from the appearance of the facility and perceptions of reputation. |
| Health, Safety and Environment issues | As well as the human cost of injury from trips, slips and falls, there is also a financial cost from lost time, insurance surcharges and legal costs and penalties. |
| Vehicle security | Staff may be attacked on return to their vehicles. |
| Theft of controlled substances | Theft of controlled drugs may mean shortages of critical medications, as well as having drug affected staff on duty in the health care facility |
| Camera tampering or camera obscured | Loss of footage. Potential precursor to event such as theft or sabotage. |