Hospitals are places of healing, but also public institutions. That opens them up to the security issues that increasingly plague public environments, according to an article on the U.S. News website.

“Securing a hospital is very different. It is meant to be a welcoming place,” said Gabor Kelen, chair of emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins University and director of the Center for the Study of Preparedness and Catastrophic Event Response. “The idea of turning it into Fort Knox is not really doable.”

Violence by patients themselves is increasing — typically, mental health patients or the elderly, the article said.

Tony York, the chief operating officer for Healthcare Security Services, said there has been an “explosion of patient-generated violence” in the past several years – both from patients themselves and, often, the people accompanying them to the hospital.

At George Washington University Hospital in the District of Columbia, anyone who enters has to sign in, state the reason for the visit (if it’s to visit a patient, that patient will be called) and show a photo ID. About 130 security cameras are in various locations, such as waiting rooms and cafeterias, but not in patient areas because of privacy laws.

GW doesn’t have metal detectors like some hospitals do; nor do they have armed guards inside the hospital. The idea of unarmed guards is to keep guns outside of hospitals, since most perpetrators of violence use guns they’ve grabbed from security guards.

“Some hospitals include police dogs in the waiting room, and that has a certain calming effect,” Kelen said.

York said some hospitals are also being redesigned for heightened security – with features like bulletproof windows that don’t face public roads. 

Read the article.