ISO Integration, the installation arm of Rainbow CCTV, has recently completed a camera surveillance project for the Chapman Medical Center in Orange County, California.
ISO Integration, the installation arm of Rainbow CCTV, has recently completed a camera surveillance project for the Chapman Medical Center in Orange County, California.
The project is allowing newly-installed network cameras from Avigilon to operate alongside existing analog cameras at the hospital that are still fit for purpose. ISO Integration has been able to protect its client's investment in the legacy units and provide an ongoing migration path using the Control Center video management system (VMS) from Avigilon whose open-architecture platform accepts input from multiple manufacturers and ensures ultimate scalability along various paths.
The cameras being used are dome units with varifocal lenses. Engineers from ISO Integration were able to plug these into an Avigilon encoder and then make a simple Ethernet connection to the hospital's network switches so that the network and video matching software could view and record both types of camera feed as well as applying motion detection and video analytics.
David Darling, IP Video Sales Manager at ISO Integration, said: “With health care facilities wanting to maximize patient, staff and visitor safety but needing to focus their principal investment on clinical excellence, our value proposition was that by using encoders we were able to produce an IP stream from the analog cameras while also integrating pure IP cameras into a unified control and monitoring platform. This is also a ‘green' solution since viable units have remained in situ.”
Intelligent scene analysis is optimizing the camera system's use of RAID, this being an important consideration in hospitals where increasing digitization of medical records makes demands on storage. Intelligent, selective video transmission optimizes use of bandwidth, preserves storage capacity and reins in cost.
Darling continued: “A feature of high-end software such as Avigilon's Control Center is the ability to search footage for a significant event based on changes in even a portion of the frame over a particular timeline. Such a review can be performed from any computer on the hospital campus or indeed remotely, a facility that is being used to significant effect by senior management at the Chapman Medical Center. ISO Integration's engineers worked seamlessly with the hospital's IT department, ensuring that IP addresses were immediately secure, and accommodating the client's style of network usage.”
ISO Integration has introduced one, two, five and eight-megapixel cameras, making effective use of wide viewing angles in lobby and reception points at the hospital. The surveillance cameras cover areas including medical emergency and surgery centers, ambulance arrival bays, cafeterias and external walkways which are benefiting from IR illumination. There is extensive surveillance of car parks to promote safety and discourage loitering or other inappropriate behavior.
Wiring at the facility is a combination of Cat5e and fiber optic, while switching units are predominantly Cisco with the existing 2.5 TB Dell server set to increase fourfold. The project features use of COTS hardware and software, this being characteristic of the transparent working methods adopted by ISO Integration.
Use of sophisticated video surveillance at the medical center has been a catalyst for general cultural change, with employees at all levels of seniority giving more thought to security, lighting, use of gates and barriers and promotion of patient and staff well-being through technology. Possible future developments include enhanced perimeter intrusion, access control and automated time and attendance.
Jason Shane is the Director of Security at Chapman Medical Center. Shane has taken a close interest in the implementation of the surveillance equipment and has assessed its functionality carefully.
Shane said: “Judicious use of high-quality cameras has enhanced our awareness of the facility in general. The cameras have helped us become aware of questionable activity in our rear car parks, exterior lights that were failing, inappropriate use of emergency exits by staff, and exterior doors failing to be locked as expected.”
Shane continued: “It is well known that hospitals are facing increased security challenges. Our senior management are very pleased with their investment in this new video surveillance system to help us meet these challenges. The system has improved staff security awareness, helped us satisfy new legislation to improve patient/visitor safety and is protecting hospital assets from theft and vandalism.”