Dear ERICA,
Here is the latest information for security and safety professionals involved in healthcare and health-related organizations.
- Check the articles below and notices announcing meetings, training and new programs to enhance your career -they're noted to the right and the material is below
- Review special announcements that can be helpful in your work
- Find summaries about new developments in our industry
CLIPBOARD is a great place to get your articles published and share material with colleagues.
If you haven't already joined MHSDA and separately, IAHSS NYC Chapter, now is the time to do it. Whether you are leading the team at your facility, managing day-to-day operations, serving at the front desk, patrolling, or working with visitors and patients everyday, there's a membership category just right for you. And if you are with one of the thousands of organizations that supplies our industry with contract services and the other tools to support success, MHSDA has membership categories that will be beneficial to you as well.
For answers to questions, for more information about IAHSS NYC Chapter and MHSDA or expanded material on subjects covered here, please drop us an email at: clipboardnyc@gmail.com. We are working on developing a website for MHSDA and the NYC Chapter of IAHSS. AND if you have material to contribute for the next newsletter, let us know now so we can include your input!
Thank you,
Anthony S. Notaroberta, PCI
Chapter Treasurer and Secretary
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PREPARING our facilities and our officers for the INCEPTION of The AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
The challenges we know about and those that are yet to be determined....
Our newsletter is the place to share some of the approaches you'll be taking and concerns you see as your team and colleagues are getting ready for January 1, 2014. What are the new security issues we envision with the hundreds of thousands of additional people accessing healthcare through our hospitals and health-related organizations?Write a short piece and get it into our expandednewsletter for next month ..........
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NEW RECOGNITION PROGRAM - Do you have a nominee on your team?
 Each quarter MHSDA and IAHSS NYC Chapter will be recognizing an outstanding security officer who is working in healthcare security or safety. Is someone at your facility the right choice for the first of these special awards?
It's part-one of our new initiatives. We want to begin with acknowledging people on your staff or under contract to you who already demonstrate the qualities that make them outstanding.
Knowing how busy your management is, here are some criteria you may want to consider for the first-quarter 2014 award. And those who don't make it onto your list right away may be up for consideration during the next round of nominations later in 2014.
Consider some of these criteria that may be particularly applicable:
* Long term quality service
* Special incident response
* Innovative ideas put into practice (at the front desk sign-in sheet- have translations of "Welcome" in 12 languages to "speak" to all the visitors that the building usually accommodates)
* Life-saving actions (AED, addressing an epileptic fit in lobby, calming an unstable individual at the front desk before the police arrive, preventing a person from harming themselves or others,etc.)
Look for the nomination forms and specifics about the application process in the full newsletter that you will be receiving next month.
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REVIEW of the OCTOBER 4 2013
IAHSS NYC Chapter Meeting at John Jay College
In the next full CLIPBOARD Newsletterwe'll be summarizing some of what we learned about how to get the attention of C-level executives. Also, in upcoming newsletters we'll review suggestions for ways to deliver succinct information to help them decide to support our requests for additional manpower/equipment. It's all focused on ensuring improved security and safety.
Do we have your best email address and contact information? Let us know via an email! Are there others on your team who should be added to our lists. Drop a note to:
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Here's Our First Full Article:
The Value of Information Sharing
By Robert Casazza
Regardless of the type of healthcare institution or community we work in, directors and managers are challenged with similar recurring issues. We all deal with the potential for workplace violence. Many of our members are rightfully concerned with potential vulnerabilities that emanate from difficult behavioral health patients, disgruntled employees and fractured domestic relationships. But consider the amount of effort you regularly expend dealing with reports of theft in your hospital. Often these investigations dominate a big chunk of my workday and for many reasons, I take these occurrences very personally.
Some theft incidents are "unavoidable". Equally true, a good number could be prevented. You are not the only manager dealing with trends of missing I-phones, laptops and pocketbooks. Sure, you regularly perform your due diligence; you may have spoken with clinical staff members and held awareness programs until you turned blue. But a hospital is a great place to prey on unsuspecting people.
Sure we have security sensitive areas, but to a large degree, it is an open, inviting place, partly because we all work so hard to make it that way. One goal is to alleviate the discomfort many feel just coming into a health center. Further, there are many patients who are not physically able or mentally alert. Then, it appears that many staff members are wrapped up in their work and are oblivious when criminality is afoot. It certainly is a recipe for trouble. On top of that, many of us operate within a culture that frowns on aggressive visitor "screening" and some of us work in institutions where 24-hour visitation is the new norm. So, how do we help each other?
For starters, many of us have implemented theft prevention initiatives, with varying degrees of success. At Lutheran Healthcare, we periodically cross-reference certain public information against our patient database. We use information that is readily available to us about sex offenders and burglary / robbery recidivists in a pro-active manner focused on identifying the risk of thefts or other severe problems before they become entrenched. When we've identified these individuals ahead of an incident, if they require emergency medical treatment or admittance, we have our focus delineated for us. Naturally, HIPPA concerns are addressed and information sharing is discrete. There are many times however, when we will all benefit from that information being shared and free-flowing among the hospital security professionals in our network.
Periodically, we all identify "persons of interest" who commit theft in our institutions. Some of us have extraordinary IP-based surveillance systems that provide wonderful digital video and still images of the perpetrators. But the evidence multiplies its usefulness when it's shared amongst us. Sure, the perpetrators may come back to your facility and someday, perhaps those images may be used in a successful prosecution. It is not a stretch by any means to think that one of your colleagues in the healthcare industry has dealt with those individuals as well.
Listen, this isn't brain surgery, but as a group, we don't always communicate effectively and tap into the advantages this network can provide to us all. Consider that we can do a better job of sharing information if we work collectively as a group. We also can work more effectively with the NYPD to make all of our lives a little less stressed.
In March, several members of our organization met with Inspector Dermot Shea and Sergeant Juan Duque of the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Operations for the NYPD. We discussed how we all could do a better job of dealing with "hospital creepers". We all agreed that we share a vested interest in identifying those individuals who specifically target hospitals for the purpose of committing larcenies. We also concurred that the weak link in the chain, was the inconsistent methods we use to share the information quickly and take advantage of the full range of resources available to us. One specific highlight was that we lacked a common receptacle to catalogue or store information relative to "creepers". Nevertheless, we agreed to maintain an open dialogue. Recently, there was an instance where we as a network took advantage of information sharing and it led to improved awareness and preparedness.
Anatomy of a "success":
09/18- The N.Y. Daily News publishes an article in the "Uptown" Manhattan issue of the online newspaper. The article depicts a male who allegedly committed several thefts at Columbia University Medical Center. Joe Jenkusky, Manager of Lutheran HealthCare Family Health Centers in Brooklyn (who was present at the NYPD meeting), sees the article, disseminates it amongst his staff and several Brooklyn directors. It includes a photo of the alleged perpetrator.
09/23- Kevin Campbell, Director of Security at N.Y. Hospital Queens, is conducting an investigation regarding several thefts from his hospital. He is able to secure several digital images of his suspect and in an effort to disseminate them for informational purposes; he forwards them to the MHSSD organization. It is very apparent that the male responsible for the Columbia thefts bears a remarkably strong resemblance to the individual who committed the Queens larcenies.
09/23- The information with the accompanying photos is forwarded via e-mail to all of the members of this organization throughout the city. The NYPD is contacted not only locally for reporting purposes, but centrally via the Deputy Commissioner of Operations. Sergeant Juan Duque agrees that the individual responsible is one and the same. He agrees to confer with the respective Detective Squads, he forwards the information to NYPD "CrimeStoppers" so that the photo of the perpetrator may be widely distributed and he requests additional media attention.
10/2- The male depicted in the widely distributed photos is arrested when he is observed wandering around St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx. Derrick Felton, a career criminal, was recognized by an employee who saw a "Wanted" poster of the perpetrator. The Deputy Commissioner of Operations takes the additional step of conferring with the respective District Attorney's Offices in three separate boroughs to ensure that the defendant's cases are linked. The defendant is held on $15,000 bail.
This represents a step in the right direction. Perhaps we can create a central database of digital images. I look forward to your input and suggestions as we move to make the best, fastest use of information that can help all of us provide safer, more secure environments at our facilities.
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SEE in the DARK?
Recently, Jim Khoury's Metropolitan Pro-Tek Security Systems, sponsored a MHSDA meeting. We asked him about his company's expertise that might be specifically useful in hospital security. Here's information he shared:
Jim, since you install systems that serve hospital IT people and hospital security administrators, what have you found helps get better communication between the two teams when you supply systems?
[Jim K.] Most of today's digital security systems require some level of connectivity to the organization's main network to function properly and provide information to all constituents. Most IT professionals -especially those in healthcare where there are such consistent wide-ranging demands on their network, take issue with incorporating anything additional. Understandably they especially resist "foreign" systems.
With our considerable background in Information Technology, we can often answer IT professionals' concerns up-front, making the integration process run smoothly and without glitches. It gives us an opportunity to bring the institution's security leadership into a better relationship with its IT professionals. And when there are issues that cannot be overcome, it is not unheard of to run our own network infrastructure to support a particular installation.
As you noted in a news brief, infrared cameras have come a long way. When these "see in the dark" cameras are installed in poorly lit areas, do we have to provide some special training for our console operators so they can use them more effectively?
[Jim K.] Infrared images are inherently different from images viewed in sufficient light. The IR image actually turns to a Black & White picture much like video formats of the past. The B/W actually sharpens the image but certain things: color of clothing, vehicles, and other objects becomes more difficult to identify. Training may enhance operators' abilities to overcome this shortfall, but the images seen and recorded have less precision. On the plus side, being able to see images in total darkness is far better than having nothing.
One drawback to IR cameras is that they actually project the Infrared light into the field of view for the CCD and lens to pick up. Unfortunately, the distance IR light reflects is limited -generally between 10 and 30 feet. Newer technology amplifies all available light and produces a very good image over far greater distances. But the drawback is that the technology is expensive and if there is no available light, there is no image at all.
Thanks Jim.
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This space reserved for your NEXT ARTICLE
 What's the next critical thing you want to write about?
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We invite you to invite your colleagues to join us and help us grow the organization.
Our focus: to better serve you
Since we're in the last quarter of 2013, we are putting together the MHSDA membership applications for 2014.
We'll send applications to you as soon as they are released. So drop us an email in November or December at: clipboardnyc@gmail.com.
Include your mailing address, work contact information, email and phone number.
Applications for IAHSS are available on-line. Please drop an email to: clipboardnyc@gmail.com for important information to ensure you are assigned to the NYC Chapter.
We look forward to seeing you at the November 22 program and we also look forward to your articles, news about your career and important information you want to share in Clipboard for next month.
Sincerely,
Robert Casazza
Chapter President
and
Your Board of Directors
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In the next months there will be Quick Links to:
Our Website That's In the Works and Other News 
Soon, you'll be able to find more resources every month via CLIPBOARDNewsletter.
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Upcoming Meetings:
November 22, 2013Join us at noon. The program begins at12:30 PM
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LOCATION: John Jay College of Criminal Justice
445 West 59th Street in Room 220N
PROGRAM & SPEAKERS:
Our speakers will be Marc Fliedner, Narcotics Bureau Chief of the King's County District Attorney's Office and Joseph Piraino, Supervising Detective Investigator, Kings County D.A.
Topics include the new I-STOP program, e-prescriptions, "doctor shopping", prescription fraud. Get questions answered. Address concerns of the in-healthcare-facility pharmacists who may need to be better prepared to quickly summons security. And in healthcare facilities that have moved pharmacies to other locations -What additional protocols can help pharmacy workers when dealing with potentially violent and addicted people in their midst?
HOW TO SIGN UP TO GO to this meeting:Right now, you can send an email with your name, phone and email address to us at :
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UPCOMING EVENT:
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We are arranging a
HOLIDAY CELEBRATION for early JANUARY 2014.
Count on joining us for this networking event that will be at a special location with great refreshments. Consider bringing colleagues you wish to introduce to MHSDA!
More details in the nextCLIPBOARD NewsletterDecember, 2013
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