Avigilon HD Surveillance System boosts campus security at Damar Services

Damar Services control room monitors use a HD camera surveillance network

When Damar Services was founded in 1967, many people with developmental disabilities or severe behavioural challenges experienced life in state mental institutions, faced with little hope of achieving independent living. By 1970, Damar Services opened its main residential facility in southwest Indianapolis and welcomed residents whom other service providers were unable or unwilling to serve. With a 96 percent success rate, Damar Services remains dedicated to helping clients realise their potential and achieve independence. To maintain the health and safety of its residents, Damar Services recently upgraded to the Avigilon High Definition (HD) Surveillance System for improved image clarity, greater coverage, and ease-of-management in an effort to more effectively resolve potential conflicts and meet its clients specialised needs. At the same time, Damar Services has successfully leveraged its HD surveillance system as an effective staff training and validation tool.

Challenge

To maintain the health and safety of residents, improve staff training and acknowledge performance excellence in an effort to enhance client care.

Solution

Staff of six full-time security personnel seamlessly manages the facility's hybrid surveillance system, which runs 24x7, using Avigilon Control Centre Enterprise NVMS with HD Stream Management. More than 90 Avigilon HD cameras monitor the facility's common areas, athletic fields, playgrounds, parking lots, and perimeter. Avigilon analogue video encoders boost the performance of Damar Services' existing analogue-based cameras and two Avigilon HD network video recorders (NVR) store up to 30 days of continuous surveillance video.

Avigilon's security surveillance can thoroughly monitor people's activity on campus

Benefits

Avigilon Control Centre Enterprise NVMS dramatically improves system performance, reliability, and manageability, reducing investigation times from hours to minutes. With 24x7 access to high-quality campus-wide surveillance footage, security staff can proactively deploy back-up support in the anticipation of potentially difficult situations, boosting staff's ability to prevent incidents that could jeopardize client safety. Leveraging the Avigilon HD Surveillance System as a training tool, management can extract footage to highlight learning opportunities in a one-to-one setting with staff to improve service delivery and recognise individuals who are following procedures in their ongoing effort to provide excellent care to residents. The Avigilon HD Surveillance System leverages the organisation's existing IT infrastructure and integrates seamlessly with gate controllers for added efficiencies.

Health and safety

With more than 800 caregivers on staff, Damar Services offers a variety of professional treatments and services to 145 clients at its main campus and at a growing number of home sites across central Indiana. To protect the health and safety of its residents, Damar Services relies on a campus-wide surveillance system to monitor activity across the entire main site. "Our primary surveillance goal is to support our employees in their efforts to ensure the health and safety of residents who are at varying stages of their successful development and are learning to navigate through the perils of life," explained Greg Johnson, president and CEO at Damar Services.

Improving performance and reliability

The facility's previous analogue-based surveillance system was unreliable, grainy, and difficult to use, making it next to impossible for Diane Lamond, director of treatment, to extract the information required to understand situations and resolve resident interactions when necessary. "The resolution on our old system was so terrible that we couldn't identify people," said Lamond. "But most frustrating was the fact that the system would stop recording for long periods of time without warning, and we wouldn't realise it until we needed to review footage of an event."

More than 90 Avigilon HD cameras amplify the security of the gyms, athletic fields, playgrounds and parking lots

With a long list of complaints about the previous solution, Lamond knew exactly what she wanted in a new system: improved image clarity; ease-of-management; enhanced searching capabilities; the ability to rapidly switch between live and recorded video; multiple views on one screen for greater coverage; and reliability. Damar Services turned to long-term IT partner AllThingsIT, a local managed service provider of IT solutions for small to mid-sized businesses, who recommended the Avigilon HD Surveillance System. "Working with the experts at AllThingsIT, Avigilon delivered a product demonstration that was truly amazing - confirming that the system's performance was miles beyond what we had before," added Lamond.

Avigilon protects residents with superior clarity

Covering 46 acres, the main campus at Damar Services includes seven residential buildings, one educational facility, an administration and family service centre, recreation complex, maintenance building, and several athletic fields. A staff of six full-time security personnel seamlessly manages the facility's hybrid surveillance system, which runs 24x7 and covers the entire campus, using Avigilon Control Centre Enterprise NVMS with HD Stream Management. More than 90 Avigilon HD cameras monitor the facility's common areas, athletic fields, playgrounds, parking lots, and entire perimeter for coverage of the property beyond the campus. The Avigilon HD Surveillance system leverages the organisation's existing IT infrastructure and integrates seamlessly with gate controllers for added efficiencies.

Damar Services also installed Avigilon analogue video encoders to boost the performance of its existing analogue-based cameras and two Avigilon HD network video recorders (NVR) to store up to 30 days of continuous surveillance video. "I have been amazed by Avigilon's image quality and clarity, which is night and day compared to our old system," noted Johnson. "The Avigilon HD Surveillance System allows us to capture the information we need to monitor the health and safety of our clients and validate our staff's positive performance as they provide specialised care to our clients."

People residing at Damar facility have a sense of security with the new surveillance network

Ease of management improves system performance

"Using our previous system to search through footage was no fun at all," commented Lamond, who explained that she was unable to pinpoint an exact date and time, but instead had to scan through hours of footage, often without any success. "Using Avigilon Control Centre software, I simply click on a specific date and time and I am taken straight to the footage I want to view. The process has been cut from hours to minutes," said Lamond. With the previous system, Lamond would submit service requests and complaints daily, which have been virtually eliminated since installing the Avigilon HD Surveillance System. Rob Crick, director of resources, explained that the Avigilon HD Surveillance System has been very straightforward and user friendly. "I scheduled a full day for training, but we ended up only needing 20 minutes."

Johnson said that he has seen a dramatic improvement in the organisation's ability to zoom in to capture the detail required for successful investigations. With greater image detail, users can better understand the particular nuances of an event that might otherwise appear fine from afar. "Another key feature is the fact that we can have up to 16 views on each monitor in the control room and can easily switch between views or transition to just one view for enhanced analysis of a scene if necessary," noted Crick.

Supporting staff with surveillance

The Avigilon HD Surveillance System has proven to be very useful as an information gathering tool to prevent or resolve problems before they become significant. "We can see things that the staff may not necessarily see and deploy back-up if required," stated Crick. "We can now better determine what prompted an incident, identify participants, and more accurately determine the truth for quicker resolution."

A training and validation tool

At the same time, administrators leverage the Avigilon HD Surveillance System as a powerful training and validation tool in the organisation's ongoing effort to deliver the best care possible. "With a philosophy of continuous improvement, we use our surveillance system as a tool for staff training," said Johnson. "The Avigilon HD Surveillance System allows us to highlight learning opportunities in a one-to-one setting with staff, but more importantly, recognise individuals who are following procedures and policies and build upon their success to further improve service."

A positive impact on service delivery

The Avigilon HD Surveillance System has had a dramatic impact on the way Damar Services manages and delivers client service. "Since deploying the Avigilon HD Surveillance System, our eyes have been opened to all activity across campus. As a result, we can proactively prevent incidents that might compromise the health and safety of our residents," concluded Johnson. "At the same time, we can mine the information captured by the Avigilon Surveillance System to train staff and validate performance in our ongoing mission to help individuals with special needs live more fulfilling, active, and independent lives."