In wake of violence, more hospitals add weapon detection systems | Healthy Bottom Line podcast

Even for someone with experience in security, Eric Sean Clay says the fatal shooting at UPMC Memorial Hospital is chilling.

Eric Sean Clay, vice president of security at Memorial Hermann Health System, talks about hospital security in the latest Healthy Bottom Line podcast from Chief Healthcare Executive.

Clay is the vice president of security at Memorial Hermann Health System. He’s also the former president of the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety.

He talked about the UPMC Memorial mass shooting and efforts to improve hospital security in the latest episode of Healthy Bottom Line, a podcast from Chief Healthcare Executive®. (The link is below.)

In the UPMC tragedy, a gunman killed a police officer and shot and wounded five other people: three UPMC staffers and two local police officers. Authorities said he targeted the ICU and entered the hospital carrying a bag with a gun and zip ties, and he held staffers hostage until he was shot and killed by police.

“We rarely hear of this sort of incident occurring where you have an armed intruder who attacks people inside of a hospital,” Clay said. “I mean, it does happen occasionally, but this appears to be someone who was very motivated, very methodical … So definitely very concerning.”

Clay said that hospital security leaders are going to be thinking more about dealing with attackers taking hostages.

“We train for a lot of different situations, including active shooters and armed intruders,” Clay said. “But, you know, hostage situations aren't really something that I think a lot of people are thinking about. So I think this has really caused people to really go back and look at some of their processes, their procedures, and how they would handle such an incident, should it occur at their campus.”

The UPMC Memorial tragedy follows other fatal shootings at hospitals that have occurred in recent years. With more reports of hospital violence, more hospitals are adding weapon detection systems, including metal detectors, cameras and more, Clay said.

“Concealed weapons detection is becoming more prevalent,” he said. “I think that's one of the things that we're going to start to really see be part of a standardized security management plan over the next three to five years. My experience, they've been very effective. So I think you'll see more people start to adopt that.”

More health systems are adding metal detectors and other technology to screen for weapons at key points, especially emergency departments which are open around the clock. Some are adding high-speed X-ray machines along with their weapons detection systems, as well, Clay said.

In the past, some hospitals have been leery of installing metal detectors or other weapon detection equipment because they didn’t want to appear more hostile to visitors. Clay said he’s heard those concerns, but he said most systems that are installing weapon detection technology are seeing benefits.

“The organizations that actually implement weapons detection have a completely different reaction from staff and from visitors,” Clay said. “Anxiety levels go down tremendously whenever you implement weapons detection. Your staff realize that there's less opportunity for weapons to be brought into the system, which allows them to focus on providing quality care. I think your patients that come through, they realize there's less opportunity for problems.”

“My personal experience has been that once you put the weapons detection in, people like it,” he added. “And if you put it in at some hospitals and not other hospitals, you know, I think you're going to see those other hospitals say, ‘We would like weapons detection as well.’ So again, I think this is going to be very standardized in the next several years.”

Hospitals also need to develop robust plans to train staff on violence prevention, including mechanisms to report abusive or threatening behavior. Health systems need to stress that staff shouldn’t have to tolerate physical abuse or threats.

“I think you need to have a formal and comprehensive workplace violence prevention plan that really goes into the details of what that entails,” Clay said. “Sometimes organizations just have a very quickly, not well thought out plan that they've achieved or received from somewhere else.”

Clay also discussed the importance of committed leadership, the need for training throughout the organization, soliciting feedback from nurses and other staff, and other security steps hospitals are taking, including K-9 teams. The full conversation is below. You can subscribe to Healthy Bottom Line wherever you get your podcasts.