Case Study: MGH Unifies, Integrates with BriefCam & Milestone – Boston, Massachusetts

With 1,300 cameras recording 24/7 and more than 1,000 investigations to
process per year, Massachusetts General Hospital’s security team was not able
to keep up with the vast amounts of recorded video. Now, BriefCam Syndex
Pro for fast video review, search and analysis, embedded within a Milestone
XProtect video management software (VMS) platform is making efficient and
effective video investigation possible.
 
The Challenge
Massachusetts General Hospital’s (MGH) Police, Security and Outside Services
Department provides some security services to many other Partners hospitals
and facilities. Following its recent digital conversion, unified on the Milestone
XProtect VMS platform, MGH’s security team was able to expand camera
coverage by adding new Axis network cameras directly to the existing IP
network.
 
“The number of investigations we were doing was taking huge amounts of time
in terms of reviewing video, and that was really a waste of time,” said Bonnie
Michelman, MGH Executive Director of Police, Security and Outside Services
and Consultant for Partners Healthcare.
 
The hospital environment presents unique challenges to security, Michelman
points out. MGH’s 17-acre urban campus, comprising 29 contiguous and 14
separate buildings (including underground and freestanding garage facilities),
is complex. The security team must also take into account not only the main
location, but also dozens of satellite facilities around the Boston area.
 
“We can’t cover all of these facilities with security staff,” said Michelman. “We
need to augment heavily with very good, state-of-the-art technology that allows
us to combine our intelligence, labor, policies and procedures, in order to
create a better holistic approach to enterprise risk management.”
 
Charged with creating a safe environment, MGH’s security team at the same
time is challenged by the clinical team’s needs for increased efficiency through
lowering length of stay and moving patients through the hospital as quickly as
possible.
 
The 24-hour Emergency Room, with its anxious, highly volatile population
presents challenges of its own. In addition, patient elopement and patient
wandering – unauthorized departures from the medical facility, whether
intentional or unintentional – pose liability threats that can be very damaging to
a hospital.
 
The Solution
A unified system was required to balance the video surveillance needs of a
busy hospital campus with remote satellite locations while upholding the
highest level of security possible, maintaining operational flow, and providing
customer satisfaction that includes expectations of privacy.
 
Michelman, together with MGH Senior Manager, Systems and Technology
Robert Leahy, decided on the Milestone XProtect VMS platform. Camera count
was increased from 400 to 1,300, and standardized with Axis network cameras
connected directly to the IP network. To deal with the marked increase in video
data, MGH’s team chose BriefCam Syndex Pro, a powerful set of tools intended
to reduce the time and effort needed to conduct video reviews, post-event
video investigation and real-time video monitoring. The BriefCam solution
ties in seamlessly with the Milestone video management solution, providing
efficient workflow for investigators.
 
According to Michelman, BriefCam has already proven invaluable. A two
year long ROI examination of video surveillance use at MGH has shown a
progressive rise in success rates with the use of video in incident investigations.
“I see BriefCam as a very important part of our toolbox of excellent practices
for protecting what is a very complex environment of tangible and intangible
assets,” said Michelman.
 
BriefCam Syndex Pro’s ability to present video metadata in graphic visualization
format, such as bar graphs, pie charts and the like, has opened up new
realms of possibilities to extend the role of CCTV video beyond security into
organizational efficiency and more informed, data-driven decision making.
“In the past, there might have been things that would have been a ‘nice to do,’
but we couldn’t do it because we didn’t have resources to watch many hours
of video,” said Michelman. “Now we can manage the content and we can see
trends, which in turn can drive redeployment of resources, and by extension,
facilitate a better investigative focus and success.”
 
Advantages
BriefCam Syndex Pro embedded within Milestone XProtect VMS platform is
helping MGH in its mission to effectively and efficiently protect and safeguard
the hospital community.
 
Michelman said: “We’re happy with these products, but it’s not just about the
quality of the technology, it’s about the quality of the partnership. You know,
it’s easy to sell a product, but to sustain it, service it, and be there after it is in is
really very critical for us.”
 
Hospital Profile
Named the #1 Hospital in America by US News & World Report, Massachusetts
General Hospital (MGH), is a 1,200 bed general medical and surgical facility
with 49,000 admissions annually, and 100,000 emergency room visits annually.
With a staff of 27,000 MGH is the largest non-government employer in Boston.
MGH is a teaching hospital and a research center, conducting the largest
hospital-based research program in the United States. MGH is also co-founder
of Partners HealthCare Systems Inc., (Partners) the largest non-government
employer in Massachusetts.
 
 
APPLICATIONS build nvr custom nvr INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS LEARNING CENTER Milestone XProtect RESOURCES SERVICES TECHNOLOGY Video Surveillance