HID - Workforce Identity and Access Management
For many of us, the workplace is more than a single building or facility. That’s what makes workforce IAM so powerful. By managing security through something we all take wherever we go — our identities — it gives users the flexibility they need to stay productive and enables administrators to quickly detect and address risks. HID’s robust, flexible workforce identity and access management solutions provide your workforce with seamless access to the resources they need — no matter where they are.
HID - Workforce Identity and Access Management
Visitor Management for Hospitals– Visitor Management in a post or almost post COVID world
Matthew Lewis, Product Marketing Director at HID Global, and Clete Bordeaux, HID Global Healthcare Business Development Director discuss how COVID changed the importance of visitor management in addressing local to national health mandates and in complying with CDC guidance.
Powering trusted identities of the world's people, places and things. Every day, millions of people in more than 100 countries use our products and services to securely access physical and digital places over 2 billion things that need to be identified, verified and tracked are connected through HID Global's technology.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Thanks for joining me again. Um, Matthew Lewis here with HID, and the product marketing team today, I'm talking with Cleat Bardo, Cleat. Thank you very much for joining.
Speaker 3:Of course, Matt, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Cleat Don Campbell and I, um, you know, Don, he's a VP on, on the product management team focused on, on safe. He and I started a, a set of conversations focusing on some of the fundamentals of physical identity and access management. And then, you know, I always think back to the conversation you and I first had when I, when I joined back in September and, and it, I really wanted to have a similar set of, of dialogues with you that Don and I were having, which was talking about healthcare. Um, cuz that's what we're here to talk about, but talking about healthcare and really let's start from scratch. You explained it really simply to me when I started what visitor management's all about, uh, in that space. And then you kinda, you really brought it to bear of how pervasive some of the challenges are in that space, how impactful they are. All of us, not all of us necessarily, but a lot of us have been to a hospital or some healthcare facility in some way, shape or form. And so it's, it's one of those that I think COVID has, has really brought to bear some of the challenges they have, but you put it even more simply like healthcare staff, um, doctors, nurses have a very high propensity of incidences of violence and safety and security concerns in a hospital facility. And so when you explained that to me, it really brought out the need for some of the solutions we have mm-hmm<affirmative> uh, but then you kind of blew my mind even more, a little bit. Um, you know, I, I come from more of a cybersecurity side. So thinking about physical kind of it's a different thing in some ways, but, um, COVID changed so much of the visitor management kind of landscape and what some of the priorities were and what, what, what made COVID that I guess that catalyst for change from a visitor management standpoint or, or maybe I'm mischaracterizing it?
Speaker 3:No, I, no, it absolutely was a change. The, uh, unfortunate statistic that you, you mentioned a second ago is how violent of a profession and to be clear, this is an American thing. And I, and I know that from speaking to people internationally, how violent of a profession it is for American healthcare workers. Okay. That was always there. Yeah. And so, you know, those that had institutions that could support it, mm-hmm<affirmative> um, would put something in place to help, um, curtail that violence, help make those, um, super needed employees feel safer, um, in their daily work environments that was always there. That is still there and is still just as unfortunate if not more. So, yeah. What COVID did you know when you asked, how did it change that what COVID did was shifted from just being concerned with the safety and security of healthcare workers, which restating again should be enough. Yeah. But it now has shifted that to infectious disease control. And now it it's about the, um, it's about the infectious disease control amongst the working population, amongst the visiting population, amongst the patient population. So now versus it just being a violent
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Environment for employees, it now potentially is an environment for anyone entering that facility to suffer from some form of infectious disease. So that was, that was, that was the big shift.
Speaker 2:Got it. Yeah. Don't mean that makes total sense.<laugh> we're the ones ultimately carrying said, said thing, um, said illness. So yeah. Especially with how close the proximity is long hours extended hours. So that all makes a lot of sense. I mean, I have to think COVID at least here in the states, as you pointed out properly, it, it was a rapid and massive shift overnight. I still remember it. Um, cuz it was about two years ago, come home on a Thursday from a business trip Friday at home. And then it's like, and everyone's not going to the office starting now. So like, it was
Speaker 3:Just, I said, you know what? That was two years ago this month
Speaker 2:Last. Yes. Yes. It was coming back
Speaker 3:From a that's coming back from a, a vacation myself and the mass and the airport and all that stuff was just starting.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. Yeah. But I have to think the hospitals did, were they able to do something to help, I guess as, as you said, kind of curtail some of the needs for infectious disease control. I mean they had to have been able to do something might not have been the right thing, but something,
Speaker 3:Everyone, to your point, everyone had to do something. Yeah. Um, to comply with CDC regulations to go into a, um, zero visitor then limited visitor environment. Everyone had to do something, um, that those things ranged from or included, I should say, they all had to restrict entry and exit in some way, shape or form mm-hmm<affirmative>. Many of them went to some form of enforcement when it came to knowing that if we're gonna have visitors at all, because remember it was a good portion of time when there was, there was zero visitation. Yeah. Many of the clients that I talked to were in a zero visitation mode, not even for the most dire of circumstances. Yeah. Beginning of life, end of life, et cetera. It was zero visitor. So they all had to do something to be able to enforce that. Um, what came out of that was some things that security directors in the industry had been looking to do for literally years. Meaning being able to finally control some of the entrances and exits yeah. Uh, healthcare facilities are much more porous environments than your average, um, enterprise office building. They're much more porous. There's many more ways to get in and out of a healthcare facility because they just traditionally have been opening and inviting. Yeah. If you were not part of those special units like ICU NICU, especially where the children are concerned, there's separate systems in place for those. But um, they finally were able to lock down some of the interests and exits, some of them were finally able to, when they did allow visitors again, they had to determine who they're allowing for contact tracing. They didn't have to do that before. You know, if we're gonna allow Matt to go upstairs, if something happens, we gotta be able to contact Matt. Yeah. You know, that became a concern we never had before. So now
Speaker 2:I was just gonna say, I didn't even know what contact tracing was three years ago.
Speaker 3:<laugh> exactly, exactly. You know, so now, you know, that was another change. No one's gonna be here. Well now if we do let him here, we gotta be able to call him back in case something happened. Uh, you know, all those things. And, and to do that now we're asking for many of us are asking for ID when Matt, the visitor comes into our facility. That's not something that was widespread in healthcare.
Speaker 2:So was it kind of, it almost sounds like the initial phase is that probably a little more brute force than elegant and they have over time, the director's been able to, okay, let's take a step back. You know, now let's start to put in some of those systems in place that we need to make this a real, I guess, system, a real process, a real set of workflows, a real capturing of information. So,
Speaker 3:And, and, and that's a, that's a great point actually is, is to highlight. So what you just said, okay. Initially it was boot force and okay. Let's, let's put our head downs and make it through this. Mm-hmm<affirmative> what I wanna highlight is none of us knew how long the quote unquote, make it through this was going to be yeah. So how that played out, you know, and I I'll go back to your term that brute force initial lockdown, how that played out is that extended longer than anyone ever thought<laugh> and then you realize we can't undo this. And so the, the, the figure, um, the, or the, the best analogy that healthcare uses is nine 11 for a aviation.
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 3:They finally came to the realization that it will never be the way it was before. There will always be more controls in place than what we had prior to March, 2020. And they finally came to that realization. Then the second part of your statement, they finally started saying, okay, well, how you know? So that took months that took really all of 2020 in some way, shape or form. They were in one of those two phases for the rest of 2020. They were in head down, lock the door mode, then figuring out, okay, this is not gonna work long term. How can I do something different? And that really takes us all the way into 2021.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, I remember cuz you know, we had all those false starts in 20, 20 up. We're partially open. I remember we went and visited family, um, and running accident. I needed to take my wife to the emergency room and to, to, to what you were saying earlier, no one could visit her. So I had to go sit in the car, um, you know, a hundred degree, uh, Memphis, Tennessee, it's a little humid there, uh, if you've ever been there. Um, so that was fun, but yeah, it was no one could visit. In fact I could drop her off, but I had to leave. Like I couldn't even wait in the waiting room that was of segmented off. Literally the only people in there could be waiting to go to some sort of room or C doctor. Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3:So,
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yep, yep. Yeah. So yeah, I think it's, it's been fascinating to, to learn more about this with you. Um, so I think now as a perfect time to pause, um, we'll come back to, what does visitor management look like in a, I won't necessarily say post COVID world. Um, but right.<laugh> more, more post than it was even a week ago, uh, post COVID world. And we can just chat a little bit next time about, about what that's looking like, what are some of the things you're seeing there and, and some of the needs so cool. I, I appreciate it. Um, we'll catch up next time and thank you everyone for listening and joining us for this special episode around healthcare. Thank you all. Thank you.