Investing in the Right VMS
Hospitals never stop focusing their time, energy, and money on healing people and saving lives. The staff must mitigate problems – whether dealing with security risks, theft, accidents, lawsuits, staffing issues, compliance violations, or budget constraints. From legal and security to facilities and pharmaceuticals, each department plays a vital role in achieving the hospital’s goals.
So how can hospitals get there? By focusing their efforts in three critical ways:
- Maximize your resources
- Use your current infrastructure in new ways
- Consolidate your assets
A great example of this is a hospital’s video management software. Every hospital has a resource for recording security video, but few use it to its fullest potential to considerably impact a hospital’s success.
When facilities monitor operating rooms to reduce the time between surgeries, it saves lives. When nurses have the technology available to improve patient treatment, it enhances the quality of care. By helping more departments benefit from the existing infrastructure, it just makes sense for a hospital’s bottom line.
It’s not often that a hospital or enterprise can boost the effectiveness of an existing system without having to replace the hardware. Milestone Systems allows hospitals the opportunity to upgrade their video management software (VMS) by providing new capabilities and advanced features. The ability to upgrade software is essential because hospitals dedicate substantial capital to security solutions that help mitigate legal risks or compliance violations. But Milestone’s XProtect® open platform VMS can help hospital administrators breathe new life into their video surveillance systems. In addition, Milestone partners with third-party technology companies to leverage new capabilities that integrate with XProtect. As a result, our partners are constantly rolling out new security and operational solutions that enable hospitals to make the most of their current systems.
Customized solutions are only part of the story. The other side of maximizing resources is making sure people understand how to operate them. Because Milestone solutions work with existing systems, there’s a familiarity built-in—meaning current and new staff can quickly learn to use these updated tools at the speed hospitals need to impact patients’ lives positively. It’s true that the technology is only as effective as the person who uses it and how fast they can get up to speed.
When hospitals take advantage of Milestone’s integration technology partners to add functionality to their systems, their existing hardware is no longer just watching doorways and parking garages. Instead, it’s adding value throughout the hospital.
By linking video with data, features like heat maps, camera location mapping, motion video facial recognition, and two-way audio support, staff and security teams can make more informed decisions and take swift action.
ICUs can monitor patients more effectively by gaining access to additional visual information in emergencies. Plus, our software alerts staff to lend assistance if a patient slips and falls.
When legal or compliance situations occur, Milestone offers functionality to make video investigation more efficient. Whether hospitals need a rule engine that can automate a wide range of security functions or want to be automatically notified when a breach by unauthorized personnel occurs in a restricted area, Milestone delivers solutions that can streamline costly investigations.
It just makes sense to use a security system for other operational tasks. For example, an open platform like XProtect can provide a heat map for a congested corridor to determine traffic patterns, enabling operations personnel to minimize obstacles and improve the customer experience. It can more effectively prevent theft of supplies, equipment, or vital medicines – whether from outsiders or within the staff. It can even enable nurses to monitor more patients and provide more care. When systems can help so many departments, they aid more than just the security teams. So, if the resource spans a range of departments, hospitals should be considering tapping multiple department budgets rather than drawing just from security.
When your VMS can do more, you can mitigate more risks, maximize your existing resources, and further stretch your budgets. With access to XProtect and the integrated technology partner solutions, the opportunity for hospitals to customize, scale, and update their technology without upgrading their hardware is limitless. So when you get more out of your existing equipment, better empower your security personnel, prevent theft, avoid potential lawsuits and compliance issues, your hospital can focus on providing better outcomes to the pivotal moments in people’s lives. Learn more about our healthcare solutions here.