Safety & Efficiency: Extinction or Acceleration? Do More With Less Amid Layoffs and Limited Budgets

The Challenging Financial Landscape in Healthcare

Healthcare organizations today are navigating one of the most difficult financial environments in decades. Rising costs of care, increased demand for services, and chronic staffing shortages are colliding with declining reimbursements from insurers and government programs. Add to this the recurring news of layoffs, hiring freezes, and restructuring across health systems nationwide, and it’s clear: every department, from clinical care to facilities and security, is being asked to do more with less.

These pressures directly impact operational performance. Security, often seen as a support function, is not immune to the strain. Leaders in security and facilities are being asked to stretch thin budgets, cover broader areas with fewer staff, and still deliver a safe, compliant, and supportive environment of care. The question becomes: how do we maximize efficiency without compromising safety or the patient experience?

The answer lies in leveraging what many organizations already have—security technology platforms—and transforming them from standalone systems into integrated, intelligence-driven assets that provide value beyond security to the cross-functional front line teams. In these difficult financial times, the decision to prioritize budget resources for the right platform technology will define an organizations' culture of safety extinction or acceleration.

Low-Hanging Fruit: Underutilized Technology

Across the healthcare sector, facilities have invested millions of dollars in cameras, access control systems, intrusion alarms, radio communications, mass notification and visitor management platforms. Yet, the reality is that much of this technology is underutilized in the eco-system and internet of things. Systems often operate in silos, with each generating alerts, logs, and data streams that require separate oversight. This fragmentation not only burdens staff, creates inefficiencies and increases costs, but also limits the real value these systems can deliver.

The first step is to stabilize, optimize and maximize the technology investment that’s already been made. The basic foundation consists of integrating access control, video surveillance, and intrusion detection into a networked or single, unified platform. Healthcare can drive efficiencies across multiple departments, right down to patient care —not just security. Integration means communication across multiple systems simultaneously, providing richer data, metrics and situational awareness to leaders and the front line personnel.

Practical Examples of Integration

Let’s look at some tangible examples of how even basic integrations can create measurable efficiency and operational resilience:

Access Control + Video Surveillance + Restricted Areas A door forced or held open in the inpatient unit automatically pulls up the nearest camera feed for staff to verify. The same is true for IT infrastructure, engineering equipment and other sensitive areas. Instead of sending a guard to investigate every alert or alerts going unnoticed, dispatchers can triage in real time, reducing unnecessary patrols and focusing manpower where it’s needed most. Technology can be utilized as a force multiplier.

Intrusion + Pharmacy Operations Access to specific pharmacy storage or after-hours access, door forced or door held automatically generates a video bookmark and sends an alert to both security and pharmacy management. This dual visibility reduces risk of diversion and ensures compliance with controlled substance handling protocols.

Operating Room Efficiency Integration between access control and operating room scheduling can confirm that only authorized staff and patients enter surgical suites. Real-time verification reduces delays, prevents contamination risks, and supports compliance with accreditation requirements.

Facilities and Maintenance Intrusion alarms tied to environmental sensors can alert facilities teams about malfunctioning refrigerators, HVAC units, or temperature irregularities in sensitive storage areas, ensuring equipment uptime and regulatory compliance.

Each of these examples shows how a system originally purchased for “security” can expand its impact into clinical, operational, and compliance domains.

The AI Advantage: Turning Data into Intelligence

Integration is just the beginning. The next layer of efficiency comes from applying artificial intelligence (AI) and rule-based automation and alerts to the massive amount of data captured by security systems.

• Workplace Violence and Crime Prevention AI-enabled sound detection and video analytics can detect aggressiveness, crowding at nurse stations, or individuals fighting or loitering in restricted zones. The technology today proactively identifies and detects early warning behaviors before situations escalate into violence or crime. Wearable panic buttons pinpoint exactly where staff need help in the moment of need as they move from location to location throughout the facility. Rehab departments and mental health units can benefit from various early notification methods for potential concerns and then activate responders automatically.

• Patient and Staff Safety Improving patient care at the bedside and clinic is here! Slip, trip, and fall detection algorithms can alert nurses or facilities staff instantly when a patient, staff or visitor experiences a fall. Inpatient video and audio remote monitoring can be accomplished with microphone, camera and display to enable real-time visual communication with the healthcare team, improving response times, reducing liability, and creating better patient experience and outcomes. These hardware components both leverage and interface with existing medical infrastructure even though it is provided, installed and supported by the security integrator. The clinical IT team supports the configuration, operational deployment and integration into clinical workflows and Epic, or other electronic health record systems if desired.

• Business Metrics and Operations Parking lot cameras, coupled with license plate recognition, can flag known vehicles, track usage trends and support revenue optimization. In the mailroom, package flow can be monitored to improve delivery efficiency. People counting and line queuing analytics allow for automatic alerts for registration management, creating an opportunity to dispatch support staff and to evaluate and adjust operations for continuous improvement. , Rehab departments and mental health units can benefit from AI that identifies unusual after-hours activity, providing administrators actionable insights into staffing and safety needs.

  

  
  

• Compliance and Regulatory Healthcare is governed by multiple authorities ranging from local AHJs, the Department of Health, Board of Pharmacies, Medicaid, Hospital Associations and other regulatory bodies.

  
  

The speed in which raw data can be turned into actionable intelligence compliments the reach of limited staff, enabling teams to cover more ground with fewer resources—all while improving safety and operational performance.

Security as Safety Technology

It’s time to shift the perception of “security technology.” In reality, this technology is safety technology that benefits every department in a healthcare organization. Security is not a siloed function—it’s an enabler of operational resilience across the enterprise.

• Early Warning and Notifications Unified platforms can generate alerts for attempted break-ins, malfunctioning equipment, risky behaviors ,or even fire risks. With proper workflows, notifications are sent directly to the right stakeholders—clinical staff, facilities, pharmacy, or administration—ensuring timely responses.

  
  

• Enterprise-Wide Value From inpatient wings to mental health facilities, parking garages to administrative offices, integrated and intelligent security systems provide a 360-degree layer of safety. This visibility expedites response times, strengthens compliance, and ultimately improves patient care.

  
  

• Resource Multiplier Every dollar invested in a camera or card reader can be multiplied when those devices interface together and feed into broader business metrics. This transformation shifts the narrative from “cost center” to “value creator.”

  
  

Conclusion: Time to Create Intelligence Out of Investment

Healthcare leaders cannot control the larger financial realities of rising costs and reduced reimbursements. But they can control how efficiently their organizations operate across service lines. Security technology—when integrated, enhanced with AI, and applied across departments—becomes a force multiplier, risk reducer, and efficiency accelerator.

It is time for hospitals and health system leaders to stop thinking of their security platforms as static, single-purpose tools. Instead, they should collaborate and partner with cross-functional teams, and recognize them as organizational intelligence engines, capable of driving safety, efficiency, and operational excellence across the enterprise.

Every integration, every alert, and every AI-driven rule brings more value out of the investments that are already sitting inside hospitals today. In a world where layoffs, limited budgets, and workforce reductions are the new normal, maximizing efficiency isn’t just a goal—it’s a long term cost reduction survival strategy.

Optimizing security platforms and layering specialized technology to create value directly supports the mission of healthcare: improved patient care. By transforming underutilized technology into an enterprise-wide asset, organizations can safeguard people, enhance operations, and ensure resilience in the face of financial adversity. Connect with us and let's have a conversation about how we can help prioritize, optimize, enhance and evolve your platforms during these challenging times.

Free Consultation

Free Consultation

Dylan Hayes 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.