The renovation was part of a redevelopment of the hospital’s access control system that makes the system compatible with that used at the other hospitals in the University Health Network (UHN), the Toronto General, Toronto Western and Toronto Rehabilitation Institute.

“We recognized our access control system had become antiquated and was in need of a boost,” says Milne, UHN senior manager, security operations.

The upgrade will allow the 14,000 clinical, administrative and service UHN staff to come and go between the networked hospitals with a single ID and access card.

Before the conversion, which started in January, PMH had an old Telecon ISL card system. Throughout the building, there were several access systems, and four or five different cards were being used. Every employee had to carry a photo ID and access card, while at the other hospitals, one card served both purposes.

“We thought this was an opportunity to ensure that our buildings were running under one solution, and we wanted to have one common access card. It makes things a lot easier,” Milne says.

Having a standard access system was particularly important at UHN because it includes teaching hospitals, says Ralph Staffiere, senior account executive at Johnson Controls, the project’s integrator. Medical staff often work in several facilities, and different systems make tracking employees very complicated.

“You have doctors who go from location to location. One particular doctor may have three access cards, three different clearance codes and three databases that need to be maintained. So, by doing [the upgrade], they can now manage that one physician going from hospital to hospital and not have multiple, different access cards,” he says.

PMH’s new access software is C-Cure 800 system from Software House, which was installed in Toronto General and Toronto Western in 2000. The hospital’s 75 old insertion card readers were transferred to HID proximity readers, and its system was integrated into the central control site network at the Toronto General.

“C-Cure is used by airports, government and police. It’s very scalable and user friendly,” Milne says.

The hospital has many restricted areas, and one of the advantages of the software is that it allows security staff to encode complicated access information, Staffiere says. Some high sensitivity areas have a reader with a pin pad or are locked down after hours, and some are monitored at both the central station and at PMH. Staff clearance codes also had to be encoded, designating who had access to which doors and when.

Before the system was installed, he adds, they had to make sure all that data on security levels was correct.

“We had to work very closely with the hospital and with the security department to make sure the appropriate employees had access to the correct floors. That had to be done ahead of time,” he says. “And we had to co-ordinate with them clearance codes and door groups before we started switching over doors in any department. Otherwise, we would be locking people out who should not have been locked out.”

The panic system, which has a station in each department, was stand-alone and alarmed only at the site security office. Now it’s been integrated into C-Cure, and the alarm goes both to the local office and to UHN’s 24/7 central control. The operator at Toronto General immediately dispatches the guard at PMH, acting as a backup in case the on-site operator happens to be out of the office.

Every entry and exit is recorded on the server, and the central operator sees the event — with name, date and time — on a screen. If there’s a breach of security at a door, an alert is sent.

“If a door’s held open, we get an alarm, too,” says Milne. “If it’s held open for longer than 30 seconds, security will be dispatched to find out why the door is open. Has someone pinned it open? Or someone may be piggybacking,” he says, adding that an important part of the new access program was making everyone more aware of security.

“It’s about the whole organization, so the whole organization is trained and educated in security awareness. They would be looking out for that person who is piggybacking behind them,” he says.