How IP Camera Systems and IP Access Control Systems Increase Safety in Hospitals
By Virginia Fair
The following appeared on NBCLA.com, the website of the Los Angeles NBC affiliate station.
“A man who allegedly dressed as a nurse to fool security personnel was arrested for stealing medical supplies from a Fountain Valley Hospital, police announced Monday. The suspect is accused of stealing from Fountain Valley Regional Hospital three separate times since May.”
Fountain Valley Regional Hospital is not alone. According to the 2012 Crime and Security Trends Survey, underwritten by the Foundation of the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS), the crime rate of hospitals rose by close to 37 percent in just two years, from slightly less than 15,000 in 2010 to over 20,500 in 2012. This increase occurred in all crime categories: larceny, theft, simple assault, vandalism, rape and sexual assault. The highest-ever number of homicides occurred, as well, with 8 reported by responding hospitals.
Interview with Todd Vohs of Holstein AG Services About IP Camera with WDR
by Virginia Fair
In our thirty years of being, Kintronics has had the pleasure of doing business with the armed forces, the education sector, library systems, and businesses of every stripe and niche, not to mention quite a few enterprising individuals intent on monitoring such natural phenomena as:
salmon swimming upstream
seals in underground caves
eagles nesting in trees
Hawks perched in New York City’s famed Washington Square.
However, we rarely get a chance to see any of our IP cameras in action once they leave Kintronics. That was, until we had the pleasure of doing business with Todd Vohs of Holstein AG Services. He’d consulted with Keaton Baker, one of our sales engineers, in February, for suggestions about a camera that would help him overcome lighting problems he was encountering in monitoring his warehouse out in Iowa. Keaton recommended an IQ862, a camera with Wide Dynamic Range.
You can record audio and video but be careful of the law.=
by Virginia Fair
These premises are under video surveillance. Convenience stores post this no nonsense warning at their front doors. Banks who display a height chart at their exit door are indirectly issuing the same warning.
This conversation may be recorded for training purposes. Most if not all companies and utilities issue this warning before connecting a customer to a representative.
IP camera surveillance is a given these days. In most cases the camera warnings are intended to warn the “bad guys”, and the recording notice is for “the rest of us.” The majority of people take these messages as givens and the concept rarely registers.
Once upon a time a major university installed IP cameras throughout its campus in reaction to a wave of violence perpetrated against female students. All went well until a passing thunderstorm brought a lightning strike which just happened to hit an IP camera mounted on the parapet of a dorm. Of course the camera was destroyed, but have you ever heard the phrase “greased lightning”? It’s a very descriptive term for within seconds, the surge created by the lightning traveled through the IP camera system, and the network destroying both the server and the switch, creating havoc right down to the network cards in students’ laptops at the end of the cable runs.
Once upon a time a major university installed IP cameras throughout its campus in reaction to a wave of violence perpetrated against female students. All went well until a passing thunderstorm brought a lightning strike which just happened to hit an IP camera mounted on the parapet of a dorm. Of course the camera was destroyed, but have you ever heard the phrase “greased lightning”? It’s a very descriptive term for within seconds, the surge created by the lightning traveled through the IP camera system, and the network destroying both the server and the switch, creating havoc right down to the network cards in students’ laptops at the end of the cable runs.
An emergency once set in motion, can not be taken back. All we can do is assess the situation, spread the word, then throw roadblocks in its way. No one knows this better than those responsible for school safety.
Whether it’s the principal, vice-principal, or security officer, all he or she can do when an emergency looms is is learn as much as he/she can, and based on the specific situation, alert teachers and students in classrooms – and oh, yes, hope that the countless hours spent in repetitive fire, evacuation, or lock-down drills have taken root.
The good news is that if the school is protected by an IP Physical Security System, they’ll have a head start.
Cities are getting smarter and safer, thanks to VCA and video surveillance. But before we get started, let’s define the difference between VMS and VCA which is actually a trick question since Video Content Analysis (VCA) stems from algorithms written into Video Management Software (VMS).
Also, known as Video Analysis, VCA analyzes streaming surveillance video to detect spatial and temporal events.
The earliest applications were used to alert security personnel to the real time presence of intruders, loiterers, unattended packages, and cars in a no park zone.
It’s always rewarding to find that one of the technologies we specialize in has been cited in a story. Wednesday, November 12 was just such a day.
An article in The Journal News which covers our area, New York’s lower Hudson Valley bore the headline Harrison Cops Bust Cul-de-sac Burglary Ring.
The arrests came after a two-month long investigation by the Harrison, NY Police, the Westchester County District Attorney’s Organized Crime Division, and the Special Investigation Squad of the Bergen County, NJ Prosecutor’s Office into what grew to be twenty-five break-ins in the tri-state area. The burglary ring would strike the expensive homes between 10 AM and 1 PM, when no one appeared to be at home, to steal jewelry and other property, often hauling away safes that contained them.
Seven burglary suspects were taken into custody as well as a Diamond District Dealer who was acting as ring leader and “fence.” The capture could not have happened without the cooperative effort of the three agencies who trailed the suspects for weeks into nearby New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, using the latest forensic technology to obtain evidence – video from IP security cameras, and information obtained from police license plate readers.
One of the draws of the luxury apartment buildings on New York’s Park and Fifth Avenues has been the access control provided by uniformed doormen; trusted employees who know every resident by sight and can be counted on to screen all visitors and grant them access only after announcing them and gaining permission over the apartment’s intercom.
The cost for such security: co-op and condo prices that reach into the two-digit millions. But there’s an alternative for those of us who cannot afford to live in such luxury – a digital doorman.
IP surveillance cameras are ubiquitous today. Everyone who sets foot out his door is well aware that somewhere, sometime on his journey he will enter into and out of several cameras’ fields of view.
Since very few everyday security cameras are covert, one has only to look several feet up at buildings, light poles, retail store ceilings to see this is true. There is a reason for this – the sight of a surveillance camera can be beneficial in deterring crime.
But there are also cameras capable of surveying an area, sight unseen, from, literally, miles away. These surveillance cameras fall under the heading, long-range cameras.
