Founded in 1837 in Cleveland, Ohio, The MetroHealth System operates four hospitals, four emergency departments, more than 20 health centers, and 40 additional sites. In 2022, it conducted more than 1.4 million patient visits across its various sites. In April 2019, MetroHealth began constructing its new main campus hospital, The Glick Center. The $757 million facility combines cutting-edge technology and modern design to create spaces that promote comfort and healing, and patient needs.

Planning for this effort began in 2014, and enhanced patient safety and security features were included in early design plans and architectural drawings. These plans incorporated digital identification badges that can be coded to allow visitors access only to the floor of an approved destination.

From the early planning stages of construction, MetroHealth leaders placed a high priority on the safety and security of their patients, visitors and staff. Implementing a visitor management system was one way to enable this requirement.

Prior to the opening of The Glick Center, Guest Services staff were augmented and the role and responsibilities were enhanced to support the efforts of creating a more secure physical environment.

Eight months before the new hospital opened, the team began testing the visitor management system in the existing facility.

Fundamental to success was to find a sophisticated visitor management software that could capture a growing list of databases and required access parameters that met both security and patient experience expectations. MetroHealth chose HID2 to meet this need and began experimenting with ideas and solutions at its existing location.

This quickly established the patient experience team’s need to own visitor management, transferring control and oversight to the patient experience team as visitor management had evolved beyond the realm and capability of hospital security staffing and expertise.

Inside the HID platform

The HID platform proved to be easy to use with minimal onboarding challenges. Installation was seamless, and software functionality was intuitive and mastered by users in hours. As a result, the patient experience team was comfortable using HID and had a live visitor management desk operating 24/7 when the new facility opened.

During the extended learning and testing phase with HID’s solution, patient experience leadership realized they required heightened coordination with the MetroHealth Department of Public Safety. This new partnership yielded an added ability to install metal detectors at all entrance points and coincided with the visitor registration effort. This new tool was a capability not recognized at any other MetroHealth facility until the opening of The Glick Center.

Working with a broad MetroHealth team, MetroHealth’s Simulation Institute (MSI) conducted several simulation-based programs involving standardized visitors/ families to design, refine, and train on the new visitor management system. They created and executed realistic scenarios that addressed the important needs of the people in need of them.

By using systems engineering principles and directly highlighting key elements, they identified and mitigated stressors and potential failure points, ultimately contributing to optimized functionality. The simulations were an essential part of process development that helped to assure smooth operations on day one for all those they serve.

Final plans stipulated that every person in the building must have a badge, with no exception. This enabled Glick Center staff to locate where badges had been last swiped and use that information to locate facility visitors. This quickly morphed into an ability to know where visitors, patients, and employees should be or had been most recently.

Under control

The staff also realized they could control vendor access by issuing badges that qualify each vendor into one of 15 different predetermined vendor access configurations. The software then allows MetroHealth to send API3 messages to vendors when their allotted visitation times expire and direct them to return their credentials to the access desk.

Lastly, because the patient experience team collaborates closely with providers, The Glick Center team brought the HID visitor management software in alignment with MetroHealth’s electronic medical record (EMR) platform, EPIC. Establishing digital interoperability between visitor management and EMR platforms enabled security, clinicians, nurses and social workers to track who visits patients in real time.

This step enables officials to document patient visitation and better understand the patient’s needs when discharged.

A hospital construction plan that considers visitor management reaps myriad rewards. HID’s cloud-based visitor management system features interoperability with digital access control systems for a comprehensive and scalable security solution.

Matthew Lewis is the Director of Product Marketing for HID helping drive the go to market for the Workforce business unit within the Identity and Access Management Solutions business area. He has led product marketing organizations for five years with experience in both vertical and horizontal global markets. Prior to joining HID, he spent time at a global software provider in the energy sector, in the collaboration and communication software space, and marketing cybersecurity products at Entrust.