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Children's Hospital Puts A
Hold On Exits To Boost Security
Cincinnati
Children's Hospital Medical
Center improved the security of outlying exit doors
throughout its multi-building campus by installing
controlled exit devices that delay egress to discourage
unauthorized use and allow security officers to
respond. Adding a "hold" button provides
positive control of the door in the interim. Hospital
administrators and security officials worked with
local authorities to come up with an approved system
that would provide the needed security and also
protect life safety in an emergency.
Children's Hospital Medical Center (CHMC) is Greater
Cincinnati's only health-care institution devoted
solely to serving the needs of infants, children,
and adolescents. Founded in Cincinnati in 1883,
CHMC is recognized nationally for excellence in
patient care, teaching and research. It is a private,
not-for-profit institution and is affiliated with
the University of Cincinnati.
Preventing a Problem
While the hospital had experienced
no security problems involving children, the growing
number of infants and children abducted from our
nation's hospitals called for a proactive approach
to prevent such incidents. "We've got sick
kids here, so they'd be more at risk if they were
taken out," explains Safety Director Frank
B. Knapke, Jr.
 Stairwell
exits equipped with Von Duprin Chexit controlled
exit devices allow emergency fire exiting but delay
unlocking for 30 seconds.
With alarmed exits and CCTV
cameras in key locations throughout the CHMC complex,
most possibilities were covered. However, a security
gap existed for many back stairwells and emergency
exits. These had to be accessible for emergency
egress and could not be locked from the inside,
although they were alarmed. A person entering an
area would set off an alarm at the security console,
but there was no way to tell where he went after
that until another alarmed exit was used. Further,
there was no easy way to apprehend someone with
this reactive approach. "An individual could
be all the way to the street before we could catch
him," Knapke says. "We put TV cameras
in those stairwells, so if a door were opened, the
camera would come on. That would give a lot of pictures,
but it wouldn't keep the child."
Security with Safety
The answer was to equip these
doors with Von Duprin's ChexitT controlled exit
devices. Doors with these devices can be opened
after a timed delay, providing emergency egress;
however, a local alarm will sound during the delay
to discourage unauthorized use. A signal on the
hospital's security console initiates a response
by a security officer. In the event of a fire, the
devices are tied into the fire alarm system, which
would disable the delay function and provide immediate
egress.
Two special adaptations of the system to provide
further security required the hospital to go through
variance procedures, with the local authorities
having jurisdiction. Instead of the normal 15-second
delay, the Chexit devices here are set for a 30-second
delay. Also, a button on the security console allows
the officer to hold the door closed longer than
the 30 seconds, until another officer can get to
the scene. These changes were granted in an appeals
hearing.
The hospital felt that the size of its campus required
more than the standard 15-second delay. It further
maintained that the pushbutton hold function presented
no safety hazard, since it would be disabled if
the fire alarm were to operate. "The fire department
was familiar with the kind of training our security
officers have, the attentiveness of our staff to
the children, and our fire alarm system," Knapke
points out. "They felt we were well qualified
as an institution to go ahead with our proposal
and voiced no concern at the hearing."
Over 100 CCTV cameras help keep an eye on many of
the exits, but Knapke avoids deriving a false sense
of security from their presence. "We did an
exercise of 'catch me if you can' to test them,
and they couldn't catch me because I knew where
the cameras were and how to get around them,"
he states.
Instead, the cameras are used with the delayed exit
system to assist the security officers. When a panic
alarm occurs, the camera at the location records
the event, and the officer at the console can hold
the button in to maintain the locked condition.
An officer is dispatched to the scene, and the security
staff guarantees a response within two minutes.
The pushbutton is a "dead man" control
that must be held in continuously to function. This
prevents a positive lockdown condition that would
violate life safety codes.
Fortunately, it has not been necessary to use the
system to thwart an abduction. Most of the calls
to date have been caused by people who became lost
in the multi-building complex, Knapke reports. Just
having the system in place and the exits alarmed
and posted provides a deterrent effect, but there
are other benefits as well. "Employees used
the doors to go out and smoke," says Knapke.
"We've eliminated this completely, because
the employees are aware of the alarm. Also, with
3,700 employees, there's the possibility of 3,700
'significant others' who might try to visit and
want to get out the back way to avoid being seen."
The delayed exit devices have also ended nuisance
alarms from these situations.
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