Active shooter drills increasing, should hospital security be armed?
Violent incidents raise questions as hospitals prepare
A wave of violence continues to threaten healthcare employees and patients, increasing preparations but opening new questions about arming staff and security.
The increase in shooting incidents is prompting more hospitals to conduct active shooter drills, says Ben Scaglione, director of security in healthcare for G4S Secure Solutions, a security company based in Jupiter, FL.
Hospitals also are seeing more violence from behavioral health patients and are developing better response plans, Scaglione says. Similarly, hospitals should reassess how they handle inmate prisoners, he adds. Handcuffs and other restraints can be a thorny issue, with clinicians sometimes insisting that a patient be released at least temporarily during treatment.
“It’s a lack of understanding. Clinical staff want the best for their patient, but the bottom line is they are prisoners and they need to be shackled,” Scaglione says. “Clinical staff need to understand that a shackled prisoner needs to stay that way. I saw a case years ago where a prisoner should have been shackled and wasn’t, and he was able to leave his room and sexually assault a female patient down the hall.”
There has been a small increase in hospitals arming their in-house security officers, he says, but that issue is contentious. Some healthcare and security experts say armed security brings with it too much potential liability and responsibility for adequately training and certifying employees. Others say armed guards are necessary because a large amount of violence can take place before local police arrive.
Arming security guards will get the attention of hospital insurers also, notes Sean Ahrens, CPP, BSCP, CSC, security consulting services practice leader for Aon Risk Solutions in Atlanta. An insurer that might be responsible for paying claims related to an employee using a firearm will demand extensive documentation of the screening, training, and certification of those employees, he says. “It takes a significant effort to maintain those records, which you absolutely must have if an incident ever occurs,” Ahrens says.
The decision might come down to what sort of neighborhood the hospital is located in and what treatment is provided, says Allan Ridings, senior risk management and patient safety specialist with the Cooperative of American Physicians (CAP), a doctor-owned medical malpractice insurance organization in Los Angeles. An acute care hospital in a high-crime area, with a busy emergency department, is more likely to need armed guards than a specialty facility in a low crime area, he says.
“When I worked for a large medical corporation, we had armed guards on campus, patrolling the parking lots, even in the facilities that were not in high-crime areas,” Ridings says. “An important benefit is that it lets employees know you care enough to protect them.”
A wave of violence continues to threaten healthcare employees and patients, increasing preparations but opening new questions about arming staff and security.
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