Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/837588
A WELLžTR AINED TE AM OF ARMED SECURIT Y PERSONNEL MAY IMPROVE SAFE T Y IN HE ALTHCARE FACILITIES, E XPERTS SAY. HOWE VER, THIS APPROACH CARRIES RISKS, AND ANALYSTS EMPHA SIZE THE NEED FOR A MULTIPRONGED APPROACH TO SECURIT Y. Tightrope BY K ATY MENA‚BERKLEY THE SCENE WA S HORRIFIC. Authorities say that at about 2 a.m. on July 17, 2016, a man who had entered a Titusville, Florida, healthcare facility virtually unnoticed shot and killed a 92-year-old patient and her 36-year-old caretaker. Police declared it a random attack, and an attorney for the suspect in the double murder said the man is severely mentally ill, Becker's Hospital Review reported. Although unarmed guards were hailed as heroes for tackling the man after the shooting, this and other violent incidents have led to renewed questions about arming guards and taking other measures to make hospitals safer. "Armed g uards do offer a higher level of deterrence and authority," says Jordan Ferrantelli, MBA, CSC, Senior Security Consultant with Jensen Hughes, a Baltimore-based company that provides fi re protection and life safety engineering and consulting. "However, there is a signifi cant amount of liabil- ity to the hospital with armed guards because if a weapon is discharged and hurts innocent bystanders, the hospital will assume the liability." The potential security benefi t is more substantial, Ferrantelli says, if armed guards serve as fi rst responders, similar to the role police would perform. "If they are tactically trained and will respond to an active shooter in a hospital, then there is a faster level of response to subdue the assailant," he says, adding that that is not the prescribed role of security professionals in all settings. COMPETING PRIORITIES For hospitals that do arm guards, striking a balance between maintaining safety and putting patients at ease can be a delicate task, observers say. "If [security is] armed at the front door, they need to have a pleasant uniform and not a tactica l uniform," says Tony Sparks, founder of Phantom Ser vices, a security ser vices company based in Holly wood, Florida. "They need to look like ... your guardian angel and not a guy with a gun." According to Sparks, that requires specialized training for o¬ cers who were trained in non-healthcare settings. "You can't take an o" -duty police o¬ cer that works in a hospital at night and click in his brain how to react inside a hospital versus how to react in a dark alley to a guy approaching him to bring violence," he says. "You can't change that reaction, that instinct … . It takes time to change his culture and the method he brings inside the hospital." Walking the HOSPITAL SECURITY 1 8 Walking the 1 8