Urban hospital provides safe environment for patients and employees

Sep 1, 2000 12:00 PM, DON GARBERA

Elmhurst Hospital Center has come a long way since its beginnings in 1832 as a place of respite for sick prisoners and the poor of New York City. Today the outstanding competitive health care facility provides every conceivable health service to approximately one million residents of Queens County. As a modern 513-bed facility, it is a Level I trauma center, 911 receiving hospital and emergency heart care station. It is the leading tertiary care facility in the Borough of Queens.

Elmhurst Hospital Center was created in 1957. Its history dates back to 1832, when it was known as Island Hospital and was located on Blackwell's Island situated in the middle of the East River between Manhattan and Queens. The island was later renamed Welfare Island, and subsequently, Roosevelt Island. Fragments of yellowed and crumbling records at Elmhurst indicate that it was probably the Penitentiary Hospital now considered to be the original City Hospital - New York City's second municipal hospital. It was part of the prison establishment intended to accommodate an overflow from Bellevue Hospital.

As do other hospital facilities its size, Elmhurst Hospital Center faces significant security issues. Elmhurst maintains a hospital police department that is second-to-none within the New York City Municipal Hospital System. The New York City Hospital Police Department at the Elmhurst Center is run by James A. Civil II, regional associate director of hospital police. Civil's background includes serving as assistant director of hospital police at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, the long-time home of Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz, who terrorized New York City in the 1970s.

Civil also served previously as manager of security at another municipal hospital and as a New York City corrections officer - working for nine years at the Rikers Island prison facility. During his tenure with the NYC Department of Correction, he was one of the first African-American candidates for president of COBA (Correction Officers Benevolent Association). Civil is currently chairman of the Hospital Police Directors Council, and a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP).

At his post at Elmhurst Hospital Center, Civil is responsible for the safety of patients and employees, and for coordination of security functions at Elmhurst, at Queens Hospital Center four miles away, and at several satellite clinics positioned around the borough.

A Vikonics 3500 Series card access system is used throughout the Elmhurst campus, linking, via hard wire, seven buildings to access control panels that send signals to the Hospital Police Operations room. The Queens Hospital Center facility is currently a separate entity from the Elmhurst facility - with its own operations room. However, a new hospital is under construction on the Queens Hospital Center campus with completion planned for 2001. The new facility will be able to monitor both campuses from one operations center.

The Vikonics system covers more than 284 access points such as administrative suites, the pharmacy, computer rooms, telecommunications room, mediation rooms, supply closets, psychiatric units and the receiving area gate.

The access control card is used in conjunction with an ID badging system from DataCard. One card is used both for access and identification.

The neonatal unit and maternity floor currently uses an infant abduction system, and is looking to upgrade to the HUG system by Instantel.

More than 49 Panasonic and Sony cameras patrol corridors, lobbies and strategic locations throughout the Elmhurst campus, along with recently installed Panasonic WVCF 202 mini-dome cameras. "The new mini-domes provide a secure environment without making people feel they are in an institutional setting, and also to complement the aesthetics of the hospital," says Civil.

The Hospital Police Operations Center houses the Vikonics central computer, along with Panasonic 19-inch and 9-inch monitors, Sony and Panasonic timelapse VCRs, along with Robot color multivision processors and micro processors from American Dynamics. All equipment is housed in a Winsted console.

The Hospital Police Department uses six vehicles to perform their duties: one scooter for each facility, and four patrol vehicles. The vehicles are fully equipped to handle any emergency response, and patrol the facilities around-the-clock.

A feature of the operations center is a recently installed composite sketch program from Interquest Inc. to aid in the identification of perpetrators. Another special feature is a computerized reporting system: PPM 2000 with IRMS software.

A total of 47 hospital police officers have peace officer status with the power to arrest. However, they do not carry firearms. Above and beyond training mandated by The State of New York, officers receive JCAHO (Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations) compliance training, restraint and seclusion training, and customer service training through their union Local 237, and the Health and Hospitals Corp. All officers also receive training on the access control system. "The men and women of the Hospital Police Department at Elmhurst and Queens Hospital Centers are dedicated and diligent professionals that perform a dangerous and difficult job," says Civil.

A recent incident attests to the diligence of the police staff and the hospital's CCTV capabilities. At about 5 a.m. one weekday, an officer stationed at the operations desk noticed a group of teenagers walking the hospital halls looking for unlocked doors. Officers were dispatched and the teens were apprehended and turned over to their parents' custody.

CCTV played an important role in another incident involving the local phone company. "They came in on a routine call and discovered that a pay phone was missing from a small alcove area in one of the lobbies. We reviewed the tapes from the previous two days and spotted a person walking out of the alcove with the pay phone under his arm. The tape was turned over to the New York City Police Department who were able to identify the perpetrator and an arrest was made," explains Civil.

Another interesting recent incident involved a successful investigation, with the help of hospital police and the CCTV system, by an automobile insurance company of an automobile accident. A car hit a pedestrian several blocks from the hospital. The driver of the car then took the pedestrian to the emergency room at Elmhurst Hospital Center and left the person there without identifying himself. The pedestrian's insurance company contacted hospital police and requested the tapes from that day. After reviewing the tapes from cameras monitoring the outside of the emergency room, the insurance company was able to identify the vehicle, and the case was successfully resolved.

Plans are in the works to expand the CCTV system at Elmhurst Hospital by acquiring additional cameras to cover strategic areas such as outpatient clinics, common areas in psychiatric units and sub-basement locations to monitor thefts of personal property left unattended by visitors. "Some people come in and tend to leave their personal belongings such as tote bags, shoulder bags and baby bags, in busy public areas while they are being seen by a physician. EHC has a very diverse culture among its visitors. These people often don't realize that they are in the middle of New York City. They may have immigrated from countries where it is an accepted practice to leave personal belongings unattended," says Civil.

Civil is also planning to expand the access control system to include additional card readers and mag locks, putting in remote dial-up capabilities for CCTV cameras at satellite clinics, and to upgrade the VCR system in the operations center to all-digital.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.

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