The benefits of access digitalization for the healthcare sector

In a sector where budgets are always a focus of attention, delivering concrete returns to every investment is crucial. Digital access solutions can help improve staff and patient safety; quickly implement more efficient, time-saving workflows; and painlessly meet compliance demands.  

Digitalization frees staff across several roles to focus on patient care, rather than spending unnecessary time on security admin.  

New access challenges for healthcare sites 

Healthcare sites have always balanced accessibility with security. Modern hospitals and clinics, however, now face an extra level of challenges.  

Opportunities and threats to hospital security are creating a new role for the access system. Most obviously, any access solution may benefit from integration with fire detection, CCTV and other building systems. 

Secondly, with so many temporary and contract workers employed on-site, access is in constant motion. It needs to be tailored to specific and very different needs and, equally, revoked when any time-limited tasks are complete. 

Thirdly, in case of a security breach, rapid investigation is essential. Tracing and logging access to specific areas may also be a legal requirement, especially with new NIS2 regulations introduced for critical infrastructure, which demand proactive “hybrid” cyber/physical security frameworks for many healthcare premises.  

Relying on manual or siloed systems to do all this could eat up hours or even days for security and even medical staff. Happily, there is a better way to work. 

How does digital access benefit hospital or clinic security? 

The solution for healthcare premises is access digitalization. Digitalizing access immediately puts powerful tools in the hands of hospital management, delivering tangible daily benefits to meet security challenges head-on, improving efficiency and regulatory compliance at the same time. 

Site security: Digital access devices and credentials help to keep every hospital user safe. Unauthorized access is minimized because unapproved key copies rarely circulate and lost credentials are cancelled with a click. Employees, controlled medicines, equipment, and confidential patient data are all safer when more access points are digitally secured. 

Time saving and hidden costs: Digitalization presents opportunities for healthcare organizations of every size and type to improve security while they also reduce costs ‘hidden’ in daily workflows, including manual key management and the need to remain on-site and/or present at specific openings.  

Contractor management: Issuing service providers and temporary staff with digital or even mobile credentials can further simplify the granting, amending and revoking of site access. Security teams waste less time handing out and collecting keys. 

Remote, real-time control: Intelligent, intuitive software helps facilities managers stay in control even while they are off-site. Logging access to specific assets or areas becomes quick and simple: a few clicks rather than the laborious process of keeping manual logs up to date. 

Choice of hardware and systems: There is an ASSA ABLOY device to extend existing systems with digital control at almost any access point, whatever building solution is in place. The range also includes biometric readers. Alternatively, ASSA ABLOY can equip customers with whole solutions to implement digital access from scratch, without invasive installation. 

Below are three of many real-life examples which illustrate the ways healthcare premises have benefited from digital access, beyond the most obvious security and safety aspects. 

Benefit #1: Staff convenience and safety 

By choosing ASSA ABLOY’s Aperio wireless locks, integrated natively with an ARD access management solution, Centre Hospitalier Métropole Savoie (CHMS) could issue access rights tailored to individual staff and contractors and implement real-time control, helping to boost site safety. Because Aperio locks are wireless, the hospital introduced more layers of security without incurring excessive installation or operating costs, including for sensitive offices and drug stores. Access point functionality at CHMS now includes real-time management logs and remote door opening.  

For convenience, staff now carry one credential programmed with their individual tailored permissions. “Having just a single badge, and not having to carry around heavy keys, has been a major advantage for us,” explains Béatrice Dequidt, Health Executive at CHMS. 

“We have implemented internal HR management procedures, creating badges that are automatically integrated into ARD's operating software,” adds Alain Gestin, CHMS’s IT Systems Architect. Aperio and ARD maintain compatibility of credentials with the French government’s electronic Health Professional Card (CPS), for added staff and management convenience. 

Benefit #2: Time-saving workflows 

Hospital MAZ, in Zaragoza, chose a new ASSA ABLOY digital solution, SMARTair, with real-time access functionality. Their online wireless access management system saves security managers’ time because they can implement all changes via the central system in real time, without needing to waste time walking through the hospital.  

Staff convenience is further enhanced: each now carries a smartcard programmed with their personalized access permissions. Custom-made cards double as employee IDs, so 625 staff and approximately 100 contractors only need to carry one credential.  

Their ASSA ABLOY system is also mobile access ready, making it easy for the hospital to issue and manage mobile keys in the future without hardware changes. 

Benefit #3: Medicine control and compliance  

Managing physical keys can impact nursing care, as pharmacy managers at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham discovered. An older, mechanical system made it difficult for them to keep track of who held the right key. Searching for that person wasted valuable time.  

They identified a better solution for convenient secure access to controlled medicines: smart keys.  

With the hospital’s new ASSA ABLOY CLIQ programmable smart key access solution, power to digital and electromechanical locks is supplied by a standard battery inside every key, so no wires are required – making it an ideal retrofit solution for hospital doors, cabinets and mobile drug trolleys.  

Audit trails for locks and padlocks are available on demand: nurse managers can quickly see who has accessed cabinets or drug trolleys. 

“The message from all nursing staff is that patients are getting medicines much easier and in a more timely fashion,” says Inderjit Singh, Chief Pharmacist at QE Birmingham. “For us, the key return on investment is the quality of service we’re providing.” 

Learn more about Digital Access Solutions from ASSA ABLOY.