Unified Security and Safety

One of the nation’s leading pediatric orthopedic centers, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children provides ongoing care for thousands of Texas children every year. The core mission of the not-for-profit hospital is to provide advanced care to children with orthopedic conditions, certain related neurological disorders and learning disorders, such as dyslexia — at no charge to patient families. The safety, security and comfort of its patients and caregivers is obviously a top priority.

The Dallas hospital spans 865,000 square feet over five buildings — three of which are linked together. Aging security and fire alarm systems made facility productivity a challenge. The state of its buildings, coupled with its mission, created unique and continuously changing security and facility needs for the hospital.

With plans being implemented to remodel and expand its space, the hospital used this opportunity to overhaul its building systems and create a more efficient and secure campus.

Upgrades Improve Facility Control
The challenges were formidable: Facility managers needed to update security systems, including access control, and prepare for a massive expansion into other areas of the hospital. In addition, they needed to upgrade the fire alarm system. All of the work had to occur with no loss of safety and security coverage for patients, staff and visitors.

The hospital also used separate systems to control fire, security and HVAC functions. As a result, the hospital staff was unable to monitor and control all of its systems from a single, centralized location. Managers wanted to establish one central facility management system that would protect existing investments, allow for seamless future upgrades and provide a comprehensive platform for an energy-savings program.

“The lack of control meant we had our engineers changing temperature settings in individual offices around the hospital,” says Joe Alexander, director of engineering and grounds for the hospital. “A central facility management system offered a bird’s-eye view to resolve issues quickly and effectively, and keep everything running smoothly.”

Hospital officials chose Honeywell to tackle the facilities overhaul. Initial project work involved upgrading the existing fire and security systems, and then tying them together through Honeywell Enterprise Buildings Integrator (EBI), a management platform that enables users to integrate all core building functions.

“Our goal is to eventually bring all sections of the hospital onto EBI,” Alexander says. “With its open architecture, we have the capacity to monitor, control and integrate operations — such as HVAC, security functions and fire alarms — from a single source, which helps minimize costs.”

The hospital also awarded Honeywell a long-term service agreement in May 2004, under which Honeywell provides ongoing EBI monitoring, maintenance and services, including the latest software enhancements and patches to ensure systems are protected and up-to-date.

A second aspect of the service agreement covers the quarterly testing and inspection of the hospital’s fire alarm system. Life safety is among the hospital’s primary concerns — so maintaining the system on a regular basis is especially critical. The system includes detailed graphics with real-time data, enabling technicians and hospital staff to monitor and demonstrate testing and inspection status for tracking and regulatory compliance.
With EBI, the hospital is finding unexpected events easier to manage and troubleshoot. By being able to view systems in real time, facilities personnel can react to issues quicker and even take a proactive approach to solving problems, Alexander says. The fire alarm system, for example, is one area where the hospital has seen drastic improvement.

“Our original system was mapped out in zones, so when a fire alarm came in, we sent the whole crew to locate the source,” Alexander says. Now, when an alarm comes in, real-time graphics automatically display the floor plan and the type of device, and pinpoint the exact location. “Rather than taking out an entire zone, we can now isolate that one device and leave the rest of the zone up and running, which saves a lot of time and effort.”
The card access system — last updated in 1996 — presented another challenge. The access cards, nearly $7 each, were expensive to replace, and lost or “dead” cards were a frequent occurrence among the hospital’s more than 1,600 employees and volunteers.

The existing readers were replaced with ones that accept two different types of access cards. As a result, employees can continue using the old cards, and the hospital can introduce new, less-expensive cards as needed. In addition, employees can use the same card for multiple purposes, including access control, time-clock functions and identification purposes. The new cards are programmable, meaning they can be tailored to fit with an individual’s access to different areas of the hospital. And by using existing network infrastructure, the hospital can expand the access system to more areas.

“We view the safety and security of our patients and their families, staff, volunteers, visitors and entire campus as paramount,” Alexander says.

Data to Drive Regulatory Compliance
The system upgrades are also helping the hospital when it comes to meeting important industry-specific regulations. The security system aids with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance, which requires that hospitals implement physical safeguards to protect healthcare information, including patient records.

When the hospital gets a visit from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), facility managers use the system to provide real-time, data-rich reports to inspectors. The hospital, like most medical facilities around the country, relies on JCAHO accreditation procedures for meeting quality standards, so accuracy and clarity are key when it comes to providing this information.

“The big thing is the documentation — to show we’re actually doing what we say we’re doing,” Alexander says. “For example, we have one generator getting live data fed to the Honeywell system at different peak and load times, and the printouts help us provide information that meets the requirements and standards that apply to generator use.”

In addition to compliance, the generators’ live feed to the EBI system also enables the hospital to proactively resolve issues before they become critical. With hospital surgeries lasting up to 13 hours, generator maintenance is essential to keep all systems up and running properly in case of power failure. The live feed enables personnel to monitor and track critical factors such as temperature, voltage output and machine runtime, allowing for better maintenance practices and system management.

More on the Horizon
The hospital is planning an estimated $25 million expansion of its 14-acre facility over the next several years. EBI will manage HVAC equipment for two new sections of the hospital, and what’s left of the hospital’s existing control system will be integrated onto the centralized platform.

The ability to control everything from one location will enable the hospital to implement energy management strategies, for example, and further expand the ways in which it saves time and money. “We’ll start to see savings on natural gas, on electricity, even on water,” Alexander says. “We’ll be able to better manage and control our energy use with real-time information, and it will help us make better decisions on our utilities going forward.”

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