How should security adapt to the unique aspects of healthcare?

Healthcare Demands Open Platform Video Management

Healthcare facilities face a convergence of challenges that set them apart from other sectors. They must protect patients, visitors, and staff responding to duress situations while maintaining privacy compliance and operating continuously without downtime. The complexity arises from managing multiple systems, including infant protection platforms, access control, licence plate recognition, and patient tracking, which traditionally operate in silos. The physical security industry needs to shift from selling standalone cameras to providing integrated ecosystems. Healthcare demands open platform video management systems that serve as central hubs, connecting technologies into intelligence. When a duress button activates, integrated systems should automatically display cameras on facility maps, enabling immediate visual verification and response. The industry must also embrace hybrid deployment models: On-premises systems for acute care hospitals combined with cloud-based management for smaller clinics. This flexibility, along with platforms that work with existing camera infrastructure, reduces costs while providing the scalability healthcare systems need as they merge and expand.

Integrated Systems for Seamless Security Operations

Hospitals need to be safe and secure without sacrificing the feeling of openness, and striking that balance can be a challenge. In a hospital, there are areas open to the public, areas open to patients, patient areas that allow visiting, and infant and paediatric areas. Each of these areas are considered different zones, and when establishing a robust physical security program, teams must take a layered approach to ensure that the unique challenges of all zones are being met. For example, access to areas like ICUs and operating theatres needs to be restricted, and access control should be a primary solution for all entrance points. Having cameras in zones like labs and pharmacies is a necessity to monitor these areas for both safety and compliance adherence. These techniques can help security teams address the unique challenges posed by healthcare facilities and optimise safety for patients, visitors, and staff.

Hybrid Security Models Essential for Efficiency

The healthcare sector presents many unique challenges for access control due to its 24/7 operations, diverse user base, and the need to balance security with patient care. Hospitals and clinics require systems that enable rapid yet secure movement of staff, patients, and visitors while protecting sensitive areas such as pharmacies, data centres, and operating theatres. Unlike other sectors, healthcare facilities must also integrate access control with broader safety and compliance measures, including audit trails, infection control, and data protection regulations. For the physical security industry, this means developing solutions that are flexible, interoperable, and user-friendly, supporting touch-free entry, real-time monitoring, and integration with building management and identity systems to create environments that are both secure and conducive to care.

Multi-site Management Capabilities Key to Facility Protection

One area in healthcare where we are seeing some unique aspects emerge is in urgent care facilities. Instead of managing the complexities of a hospital environment, many of these healthcare organisations are challenged with managing their geographically dispersed network of locations from a centralised point. Single platform systems that combine remote management of security, including intrusion, access control, and video, enable security managers to have multi-site management capabilities to perform many security tasks remotely instead of needing to be onsite. With remote management, credentials can be issued and revoked in near real time to mitigate workplace concerns and maintain a safe environment. After hours, AI-powered video analytics can provide proactive alerts to security staff or directly to a monitoring station, thus reducing the potential for crime during vulnerable times. Access rights can be limited to specific employees for specific time periods and areas of the building, eliminating unauthorised access to high value medical devices.

Open-architecture Solutions Support Healthcare Teams

Healthcare environments are unique because they must remain open and welcoming while addressing high rates of workplace violence. Hospitals and healthcare facilities operate around the clock, serve vulnerable populations, and must comply with strict regulatory and privacy requirements. Security must work quietly and seamlessly in the background to protect staff, patients, and visitors. Yet many hospitals still rely on siloed, outdated infrastructure, making adopting new tools or consolidating monitoring difficult. The security industry can address these challenges with open-architecture solutions that unify systems and embed privacy safeguards. Modern systems offer analytics that can detect risks early and reduce alarm fatigue. These solutions support healthcare teams by enhancing safety without adding complexity or disrupting the patient experience. Medical teams can stay focused on their primary goal of caring for their patients.

Converged Systems Enhance Healthcare Security and Privacy Compliance

Hospitals and other healthcare providers bring together multiple groups—staff, patients, visitors, vendors, etc.—each requiring specific levels of access. Physical access security is essential, but facilities must also safeguard protected health information, medications, medical devices, and sensitive operational areas. Hospitals face even greater security challenges to support 24/7/365 access while facilitating smooth patient flow. Recent trends in the physical security industry show:

• Significant growth in mobile credentials for visitor management, with two-thirds of survey respondents either deploying or planning to deploy such solutions.
• Greater use of biometrics, which can lower risks associated with traditional login methods and reduce potential contamination in sterile environments.
• A shift toward unified security management that combines video surveillance, access control, intrusion detection, etc., a trend embraced by 67% of security pioneers.
• Interoperability among security software and platforms, driven by open technology platforms.
• Greater efficiency with AI agents for improved threat detection and scalability.

Hybrid Ecosystems Revolutionize Healthcare Security Infrastructure

The healthcare market presents a distinct set of challenges and priorities that demand a tailored approach from the physical security industry. Hospitals and clinics for example, must remain welcoming spaces that operate around the clock, all whilst managing a complex infrastructure that invites a consistent flow of traffic from patients, staff, and visitors. This level of high footfall, paired with sensitive areas like pharmacies and server rooms and the need to protect vulnerable individuals and patient records, limits the use of restrictive security measures. As such, systems must be scalable, active, and not disruptive to daily operations. Physical security in healthcare settings is not only about preventing theft or intrusion, but also about safeguarding human life, privacy and dignity in a uniquely high-stakes environment, and unified systems play a critical role in monitoring and implementing permissions whilst limiting access where required.

Secure Access Control Systems

In the United Kingdom, much of the NHS estate still relies on legacy access control systems — many built around outdated low-frequency proximity or even magnetic stripe cards. These technologies offer limited security protection yet the financial pressures facing NHS Trusts mean that large-scale system replacements are rarely possible. Rather than a “rip and replace” approach, hospitals need a sustainable, phased migration to modern, secure access control systems such as MIFARE® DESFire®. This calls for multi-technology readers capable of reading both old and new credentials -supporting legacy Wiegand connections today, but ready to switch to OSDP when new control systems are eventually installed. This “soft migration” approach recognises the reality of constrained budgets and operational pressures, allowing upgrades to take place gradually without wholesale disruption and as resources permit. This organic migration allows security standards to rise steadily without a single, budget-draining overhaul. Another unique dimension of healthcare, particularly in mental health facilities, is the need for anti-ligature equipment. Door furniture, sanitary fittings and now even access readers must minimise self-harm risks without compromising on security. Until recently, anti-ligature readers were not widely available, but new designs mean Trusts can now specify them within existing access control systems, maintaining both safety and compliance.

Integrated, Hybrid Ecosystem Strategies

Healthcare facilities face a delicate balance in effectively monitoring spaces for potential threats – whether it be from the theft of physical assets and sensitive data or workplace violence – and they must also ensure strict compliance for patient safety. With a constant flow of staff, patients, and visitors, these facilities require a robust, layered defense system that combines physical and digital security protocols. Integrated security systems are essential in unique high-volume care environments such as hospitals and urgent care clinics where protecting patients and their sensitive data is crucial. To ensure their protection, facilities have implemented solutions such as granular permission control rules for staff access and visitor verification and role-based permissions with real-time monitoring of patient areas. While these methods have seen success, healthcare security is now facing a new challenge of adapting these solutions to fit the home healthcare setting. The answer to a variety of challenges is through the integration of advanced video analytics and AI with human oversight. A growing trend is the use of video systems by non-security personnel, such as nurses and caregivers, who rely on real-time insights such as intuitive readouts to support patient care.