Radios provide security to medical centre

Williamson Medical Center (WMC) has undergone a $83 million expansion and construction project designed to provide better care for the local community. This included an upgrade to the radio system.

Williamson Medical Center (WMC) is a not-for-profit, community-focused hospital offering diagnostic care, wellness programs and physicians in 53 specialties and subspecialties to more than 180,000 residents in Williamson County, Tennessee.

When security director Al Segal took his post at WMC, he found that the coverage and other features of the existing radio system were inadequate and knew he needed to make a move to a new system that provided better coverage, features and a smooth narrowband path.

He had used Kenwood radios as a police officer and contacted the local authorised dealer, CommTech, to move the entire WMC security team to the company’s digital NEXEDGE portables.

“Once we changed to Kenwood radios, we had no more dead spots,” Segal observed. “These new radios work everywhere, from the basement to other areas on the campus.”

Along with coverage, Segal wanted to make sure that communications were assured in emergencies. “One of the worst things that could happen would be an inability to communicate in a critical situation.”

An example of this at WMC was a major gas leak knocking off a gas main. People all over the facility had to keep back from the leak. The security team needed to maintain order until the gas company could come in and shut down the main gas line.

The new radio system provides a valuable service in an incident command situation. Each WMC department has a radio available to use in case of emergency. When there are power failures and they need to run a generator, the radios are indispensable.

The digital radios provide privacy, which is imperative in a hospital setting with the new HIPAA standards. WMC uses a telephone patch so that an operator can call the security department and, in the past, those conversations could be heard. Now, the system provides complete privacy and with talk-around, the security department can set up their own special channels for further security.

Segal sums up his feelings about the digital system, “I wouldn’t ever go back. This is definitely a top-notch product.”