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Unified healthcare access control

Executive Alarms has installed ACT access control equipment on more than 450 doors in a roll-out across multiple hospital sites in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, in the UK.

The project covers facilities ranging from a new £11m centre for adolescents with mental health problems in Headington to a brand-new adult unit with 80 beds in Aylesbury, built at a cost of £40m.

The Aylesbury facility, which was constructed by Kier Group, has merged multiple services onto the same site meaning that a wider range of clinicians and health professionals are available to patients. It opened in 2014.

The challenge for ACT was replacing the number of different legacy systems in use with a single solution across all properties. After Executive Alarms won the contract in open tender, their designers collaborated with ACT engineers to design and deliver the required solution.

The Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and the Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust are using the latest version of ACT’s management software, ACTenterprise. This is a role-based platform with functionality available to users according to their specific needs (e.g. installer, security guard, system administrator), a feature that increases overall security. The software is highly intuitive with the look and feel of a Web browser experience. Full integration to ACT’s own VMS solution, ACTviquest provides additional real-time security.

Executive Alarms and ACT created a role-specific database structure for the clients who were able to populate this from their existing software without any re-keying. This is a feature of ACTenterprise that is of considerable value to customers and can produce rapid return on investment (ROI) during migration.

The trusts ran parallel systems initially at small sites while security managers tested the new equipment in the field and found that it exceeded expectations.

Jason Thomas, senior engineer at Executive Alarms, said: “The key performance indicator here is that ACT have delivered a completely focused solution that allows central administration of previously fragmented systems and enables the client to obtain MIFARE cards themselves in a cost-effective manner.

The sites include high, medium and low security in-patient units as well as daycare centres. The savings have been widespread and include the cost of the controllers over rival suppliers, a reduction in the number of engineer call-outs and rationalisation of system administration.”

The trusts are using ACT’s ACTproMIFARE1040 proximity readers which are suitable for indoor and outdoor installation. They support third-party smart cards and fobs, are housed in a robust polycarbonate housing and have an ingress rating of IP67. Crucially for this project, they have a flush mounting option which reduces potential for self-harm by factoring out ligature points.

The readers are being used with door stations and controllers from the ACTpro range.

Richard Huison of ACT said: “The client needed precise tailoring of access levels. Facility managers can put an individual into a group in terms of roles-specific user rights but also fine-tune that person’s unique access privileges. ACT are industry leaders in this functionality.”

He continued: “The trusts are also benefiting from alarm management so that if a door is forced or there is a voltage problem, the self-diagnostics in the ACTenterprise software will advise security. Another core offering was embedded interlocking or airlocks. These are logic-based and intuitive for the user to understand but are not a core feature of our main competitors. ACT has empowered the trusts with an adaptive system that allows interlocking of doors as patient care processes change.”

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