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Security Technology Executive
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Fitting Solutions Into the Big Picture
At Huntsville Hospital, security upgrades ride the wave of other business initiatives.The Latest from SIW
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By Marleah Blades
Security Technology & Design
The day he was hired as director of safety, security and parking at Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, AL, Brett Bramlett jumped straight into the security planning for a massive expansion project. In the six years since then, things haven’t slowed down much. Huntsville is a 901-bed facility that employs more than 550 physicians. It’s the largest and oldest medical center in north Alabama, and it serves as the referral center for the whole Tennessee Valley.
Huntsville has a high standard of care for its patients. The hospital has been named one of the country’s best in orthopaedic and vascular services for three years running, and it continually improves and expands its facilities to meet the needs of its patients. The hospital has completed the construction that welcomed Bramlett into his new job—the building of a new heart center, parking garages and a tram to provide transport between the hospital’s main building and its east wing. It’s also converted the east wing into a women's and children’s hospital, and now it’s gearing up for several new projects. In each change, Bramlett has looked for an opportunity to upgrade and expand his security program, with great success.
Change of Command
The gem of the recent upgrades at Huntsville is a new command center that was custom designed for the hospital staff by Birmingham, AL-based integrator Gorrie-Regan and Associates.
“They had this old room in the bottom of a parking deck, and they were building a brand new deck,” said Scott Wilson, sales for Gorrie Regan. “Basically they were outgrowing this little dungeon they were stuck in, and this was Brett’s opportunity to upgrade to something nicer.”
The biggest problem with the old control room was real estate. All the monitoring and recording equipment resided in the same small room, and wires inevitably tangled and spilled out everywhere. The technology wasn’t the problem—in fact, Bramlett had recently overseen a transition from VCRs and multiplexers to full-featured DVRs—but the cramped quarters inconvenienced the monitoring officers, made organization difficult, and impeded system expansion. “When we added the infant abduction system, we really didn’t have anywhere to put the monitor or the computer, so we wound up sticking it on the shelf, and it didn’t look real neat,” said Bramlett.
When he learned the old garage was being torn down and a new one would be built, Bramlett seized the opportunity to begin planning for a new, expanded command center. “We had time to actually get a group of officers together—some of our senior officers who had been here a while—and we visited other hospitals and looked at different consoles and different ideas. We spent about 12 months deciding on the current design.
“We were able to put a wish list together, and (Gorrie-Regan) took that and came up with the design that would work best for the employee that’s actually sitting in there,” he said.
