Over the past few years, the Division of Public Safety and Security has steadily expanded its security efforts at Michigan Medicine through increased staffing, additional surveillance cameras and the introduction of K-9 security dogs.
During the Sept. 21 Board of Regents meeting, Marschall S. Runge, chief executive officer of Michigan Medicine and executive vice president for medical affairs, shared updates about efforts to expand security throughout the organization and enhance current safety measures with robust state-of-the-art technologies to further support the DPSS professionally trained staff.
Runge said Michigan Medicine leadership has implemented an enhanced Workplace Violence Prevention Program over the past 18 months. It is designed to ensure continued safety and security for patients, visitors, staff and learners.
“We will continue to work with all staff and learners to educate, collaborate and implement the best practices around safety and security,” Runge said.
“Nothing is more important than delivering care in a safe and secure environment, every day. Safety is central to our core mission.”
Key initiatives that will be implemented over the next 12-24 months include:
- Updating more than 180 security cameras from analog to digital.
- Investing in additional cameras for select facility entrances.
- Deployment of cameras with analytics for surveillance outside of facilities, to identify exposed firearms. Overall, Michigan Medicine deploys more than 2,000 security cameras.
- Redesigning the visitor-management system to reduce the number of facility entry points, and increasing staffing to monitor those visiting patient-care facilities.
- Michigan Medicine employs DPSS officers who are present around the clock with radio-access to armed U-M Police Department officers if needed.
- All Michigan Medicine security officers receive comprehensive training totaling more than 500 hours.
- Individual duress buttons are planned for staff who can choose to wear them to immediately notify security of an incident and to expedite a response.
- Plans are underway to add weapons-detection technology — an enhanced version of metal detectors — in key locations. Weapons-detection systems combine metal detection and artificial intelligence to identify concealed weapons.
