Healthcare: Do You Really Know When Cameras Are Not Functioning?
- Security Solutions
- Jul 23
- 5 min read
Don’t Get Caught in a High-Risk Situation
In today’s healthcare environments, physical security isn’t just about doors and locks — it’s a vital part of delivering safe, high-quality care. Security technology, particularly video surveillance, plays a foundational role in reducing enterprise risk, ensuring staff and patient safety, supporting compliance requirements, and enhancing operational efficiency. Hospitals and healthcare facilities operate in a 24/7 ecosystem where every second counts. From the emergency department to sensitive pharmacy areas and behavioral health units, the visibility that cameras provide is not a luxury — it’s a necessity.
Yet, too often, organizations only realize a camera isn’t functioning after a critical incident occurs. By then, it’s too late. A non-functioning camera can mean missed evidence in a workplace violence incident, undetected unauthorized access, or an unrecorded patient fall. These gaps threaten not only safety and compliance but also organizational credibility and legal standing. That’s why it's crucial to ensure your video surveillance systems are always on, always reliable, and always monitored.
The Need for People, Processes and Technology in Sync
Operational resilience in healthcare security requires a synchronized approach that integrates people, processes, and technology. Security officers and facility teams can only be effective when the processes they follow are clear, and the technologies they rely on are performing as expected.
However, even the best-trained staff can’t mitigate a situation they can’t see. That’s why technology monitoring is not optional — it’s foundational. Surveillance systems, like any other technical asset, degrade over time or fail suddenly. Without automated tools and routine maintenance procedures in place, failures can go unnoticed for weeks or even months
How Security Cameras Fail -- And You Might Not Know
Security cameras are sensitive devices operating in complex IT environments. They can fail for a wide range of reasons, often silently and without visibility:
Device Damage or Vandalism: Cameras in behavioral health units, parking garages, or public waiting areas may be intentionally damaged or repositioned, disabling their effectiveness.
Lens Obstruction or Blur: A shifted lens, dusty cover, moisture ingress, or loss of focus can degrade image quality. The camera may still be “online” but useless in capturing actionable footage.
Power Supply Issues: Failures in PoE switches, local power sources, or UPS backup systems can cause cameras to drop offline or reboot intermittently.
Network Disruptions: Cameras rely on multiple network segments, and issues like switch port failures, VLAN misconfigurations, or cable degradation can interrupt their connectivity without any visible alert.
Storage and Recording Errors: Even if the camera is online, issues with network video recorders (NVRs), storage arrays, or retention settings may mean footage isn’t being recorded properly or is being overwritten too soon.
Firmware or Software Bugs: Updates gone wrong or legacy firmware can introduce instability, causing random reboots or failure to stream video.
Configuration Errors: A misconfigured field of view, incorrect time synchronization, or failed motion detection settings can all degrade system effectiveness.
Without a formal health monitoring system in place, these issues may go undetected until the moment video evidence is needed — and found missing.
Why Holistic Heath Monitoring is Essential
The Risk Landscape
Just like a hospital relies on a central monitoring station to track patient vitals, your video surveillance infrastructure needs its own “central monitoring” — a holistic health monitoring program that ensures cameras and related systems are functioning as intended.
Here’s what a strong monitoring strategy includes:
1: AI-Based System Health Monitoring
Video Management Systems (VMS) and infrastructure lack comprehensive AI health monitoring tools. Healthcare today requires AI tools and learning-based health monitoring that go far beyond ping tests. Simple AI tools today can detect:
Reduced resolution or framerate from expected levels
Unexpected camera tampering or scene position shifts
Device temperature issues and hardware warnings
Inconsistent bitrates and low-light performance anomalies
AI can also alert to suspicious patterns such as repeated reboot cycles, failing storage paths, or signal degradation, giving your team a heads-up before full failure occurs.
2: Software Support Agreements (SSA)
Partnering with your system manufacturer or integrator and maintaining an active SSA ensures you have timely access to:
Critical firmware and patch updates
Security vulnerability mitigations
Manufacturer diagnostics and remote support tools
Escalation pathways during critical incidents
SSAs are not just technical contracts — they’re lifelines for maintaining operational continuity in dynamic healthcare environments.
3: Scheduled Professional Health Checks
Nothing replaces the insight of experienced professionals who physically inspect, test, and validate your system’s operation. A robust maintenance program includes:
Visual inspection of key camera views and focus
Device uptime and system performance reporting
Review of recording retention and motion-triggered events
Load testing of VMS servers and network paths
Verification of secure system configurations
These routine checkups ensure that your most valuable assets — for example: IT head-end, surgical suites, pharmacy storage, entrances, and behavioral units — are covered by fully functional, optimized video coverage.
The Cost of Being Caught Unaware
Imagine an incident occurs in your emergency department involving patient-on-staff violence. You go to retrieve the footage, only to find the camera was online — but the lens was pointed at the ceiling. The camera passed basic “green check” status reports, but in reality, it was functionally blind. The liability risk, compliance exposure, and reputational damage could be immense.
Or consider a fall in a senior care unit. If footage is missing or corrupted, you lose a key tool in understanding what happened and defending your clinical team’s actions.
Security failures don’t just affect operations — they jeopardize trust. Patients, families, regulators, and insurers all expect healthcare organizations to uphold the highest standards of safety and security. Many of these situations lead to legal and compliance situations that have a impacts to business operations and organization finances
Conclusion: Partner With a Strong Physical Security Provider
Ultimately, maintaining a healthy security ecosystem takes more than just deploying hardware. It takes a strategic commitment to resilience, visibility, and response. That’s why partnering with a physical security provider who understands the complexity of healthcare environments is essential.
A strong partner in healthcare is necessary to deliver:
24/7 system health monitoring and alerting using the most efficient and modern tools
Regular test-and-inspect services for critical devices
SLA-backed service agreements and rapid-response support
Proactive firmware and patch management
Data-driven reports to support compliance and audits
In a high-stakes environment like healthcare, blind spots are unacceptable— literally or figuratively. Video surveillance systems must be always on, resilient, and self-aware. Because when an incident happens, the worst outcome isn’t that it was captured on camera — it’s that it wasn’t.
Don’t wait until something goes wrong to find out your cameras or other security devices weren’t working. It’s simple to have a resilient system. Make monitoring, maintenance, and partnership the foundation of your physical security strategy. Your patients, staff, and organization deserve nothing less than the best and safest environment therapeutic care to occur.
By: Dylan Hayes, Healthcare Specialist, CPP, CHPA
Dylan is a 25 year physical security technology expert and previously acted as the physical security program leader for Seattle Children’s Hospital and Research Institute. He managed teams, operations and technology that transformed the culture of safety and experience for staff, visitors and patients. Today, he is the Healthcare Specialist for Security Solutions NW, a 120 year-old Washington based security and fire life-safety integrator partner. He is passionate about delivering healthcare efficiencies and better outcomes for safety, security and workplace violence prevention.
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