MD News- Chattanooga, TN

A study by Johns Hopkins University researchers published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine found that at least 154 shootings took place at hospitals in the United States between 2000 and 2011. While they are comparatively rare, hospital shootings, such as fatal incidents in early 2015 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a Veterans Affairs clinic in El Paso, Texas, attract significant public attention. That puts facilities under pressure to devise policies and procedures that have the best chance of keeping patients and staff safe. MD News asked three hospital security insiders to share their top tips for increasing security at healthcare facilities. Joseph A. Hendry Jr., CLEE, Lieutenant with the Kent State University Police Department in Ohio: “Having armed security is good. Ensuring those people are trained is even better. Lots of security

[fusion_personnel] carry a gun and that’s about it; they don’t receive a lot of training. “The medical staff needs to go through training and then apply those concepts to where they work in the hospital: ‘Which rooms are appropriate for lockdown? What do we have to barricade with? How do we evacuate if we can?’ You will get more bang for your buck from training your employees than you ever will from physical security.” Read more