By Ken Bukowski/ Special to Healthcare Facilities Today

Staying informed of trends in healthcare crime is an important part of planning and maintaining a successful security program at your hospital or facility. There are a number of useful resources available:  

• The 2014 Healthcare Crime Survey, conducted by the International Healthcare Security and Safety Foundation (IHSSF), reports on healthcare crime trends for 2012 and 2013.

• The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report Program provides a comparison of crimes year over year by location. 

• CRIMECAST reports offer a crime model that can help you analyze the neighborhood, demographics and crime statistics for the community where your healthcare facility is located. 

While resources like these are helpful in providing healthcare security professionals with an understanding of crimes that impact hospitals, the data that emerges should be just one piece of a much larger security assessment tailored to your healthcare facility.

Your security officer services provider can help you conduct a security assessment, analyze all available data and build a roadmap for your security program success.

Because incidents vary widely from hospital to hospital, your assessment must take into account crime statistics at your own facility, from the outside (parking lots, campus, etc.) to the interior. 

It’s also important to analyze not only the location, but what time of day, what day of week, etc., crimes are taking place. For example, perhaps incidents of theft are trending downward, but thefts that do occur are happening on the third level of the parking garage overnight. Collecting and understanding trends can help you prioritize resources and maximize your return on your security investment.  

Once all gathered data has been assessed, your security provider can help you strategically pinpoint solutions and regularly evaluate them for effectiveness. An informed security program is a successful security program. Data-driven strategies can help you with current and future direction.

Bukowski is the vice president of healthcare, AlliedBarton Security Services.