Success Story – Fastest Growing Healthcare Provider Streamlines and Automates Access Control Card, Visitor, and Employee ID Card Management
Challenges BTI Overcame with Automation:
- Tedious Repetitive Data Entry for Employee Onboarding and Offboarding – Badge Creation, Access Settings, and Reporting Ties Up Multiple Employees
- Disabling and Replacing Badges Requires Full-Time Staff 24/7
- Timely Building and Door Access Changes Require Full-Time Staff 24/7
- Human Error Leads to Security Incidents and Provider, Nurse, and Employee Dissatisfaction
- Low Job Satisfaction for Access Control Administrators, Security, and Managers Who Have to Be on Call 24/7
Result : Healthcare organizations automated these processes freeing five full-time staff to focus on more important and interesting roles in HR, security, and compliance.
One of BTI’s clients is the fastest-growing healthcare provider in the United States. With more than 250 weekly hiring and off boardings across 60 clinical sites, they face the dual challenge of badge administration/facility security AND HIPAA compliant recordkeeping across several thousand employees.
When we partnered with this customer, we discovered they were manually turning employee credentials on and off in each facility leading to frequent security incidents and a $300,000.00 annual spend in record keeping and administration of employee door key card credentials. Noone in IT, Compliance, HR, Safety, cybersecurity, or physical site security liked the system. In nearly every safety or HIPAA investigation, the manual and system errors came up as a cause or contributing factor.
The additional personnel required exceeded the cost of BTI’s full replacement, leading to fast tracking the project as soon as we completed the initial proof of concept for the integration (which took only 2 days to complete, test, document and put into production with full documentation).
In addition to $300,000 in payroll for system administration, the old way of doing things had a high incidence of human error and complaints from employees, providers, site safety managers, HR, legal, and pharmacy. For compliance and security, door access control technology is pervasive in healthcare. Additionally, healthcare facilities are the most costly facilities to work in due to infection control and other regulations that apply. Because the ROI is so great, one would expect this type of converged security solution to be common. In the field, even in the nation’s most prestigious hospitals, it’s not common at all.
The Challenge
The primary challenge was supporting this health care organization’s epic rate of facility, employee, and systems expansion and sprawl (common in healthcare) while simultaneously integrating the new technology with the old systems. Although this was what the physical and cybersecurity agencies now call “security convergence” or “converged security,” back in 2014, this was just a tiny bonus add on that BTI routinely did for its clients whenever the opportunity would arise.
With so many disconnected systems and middleware between them, having a reliable single source of truth for credential security and site safety was an unexpected bonus we provided in 2014. Today, this type of request for “converged security” is becoming more common.
HR systems, training systems, IT, clinical, and pharmacy operations require different software and modules to operate. In this environment, HIPAA compliant record keeping and hard dollar cost savings are hard to come by without serious automation. Although everyone is talking today about “converged security” applications, few can or do deliver working and time tested systems and applications.
The Solution
Our client was a battle tested medical organization that knew they were a big target for every kind of physical and cyber theft and fraud. Through their history, they had dealt with every conceivable circumstance and crime. BTI stepped in with world-class wiring, electrification of locking hardware, and installation of reliable panels and power supplies across all sites and over 1,000 access-controlled doors, gates, and handicapped door operators. In addition, we automated access badge credential creation and management to ensure security, safety, HR, employee, and provider satisfaction with the access control system.
Real-Time Badge Creation for New Hires
When a new employee is added to the HR system, a corresponding record is automatically created in the access control system, generating an access badge with photo instantly. This eliminated the need for manual data entry, reducing onboarding time and data entry errors.
Automatic Badge Deactivation for Leaves of Absence
When an employee goes on leave or their role changes, or they’re issued a new badge in the HR system, their badge is automatically updated or deactivated. When the status changes again, the integration seamlessly updates their badge again.
Secure Offboarding
If an employee is terminated or resigns, their record in the HR system triggers the immediate deactivation of their door access badge as well. The historical data remains stored for future reference if needed, enhancing compliance and security.
How BTI Made It Happen
A key highlight of BTI’s solution was its ability to deliver both large scale implementation and seamless integration and systems management. This ensured that security operations continued without disruption, as the organization began automating more and more processes.
The Results: Enhanced Efficiency and Security
With BTI’s integration in place, the organization benefited from:
Faster, Error-Free Onboarding
Enhanced Security
Operational Efficiency
Future-proofing
Significant Savings
How BTI Services Can Benefit Your Business
Converged Security Solutions
Converged security is something that we’ve been doing at BTI since 2014. The operational efficiency and added security our services offer normally create hard dollar return on investment while also meeting stringent CISA / DHS Interagency Security Committee (ISC) best practice recommendations for facility security and cybersecurity.
Cross-Platform Compatibility
Automation for Greater Efficiency
By automating key facility security, cybersecurity, and OT processes, we reduce risk, reduce human error, and improve productivity and security all at the same time.
Why Partner with BTI?
At BTI, we’re more than just a service provider—we’re a strategic partner. We can start as we did with this particular client – a service call on a burglar alarm their vendor couldn’t fix right away. We don’t charge for professional design or itemized budgets, even for large enterprise projects. No matter how small or large your project is, we believe you deserve the formost technical quality that can be delivered with fair, transparent, and itemized budgets. This success story demonstrates how BTI can transform complex operational challenges into smooth, automated processes without any outside consultants or partners or 10-12 legged sales calls. Give us your biggest challenge and we’ll make it our own to solve for you.
