Selected from among a total of eight video management software providers originally considered.

Since its founding in 1852, Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) has been dedicated to children’s healthcare. Each year, there are over 170,000 patient visits to the hospital. GOSH is at the forefront of pediatric care and nurse and doctor training in the UK. In short, Great Ormond Street Hospital is one of the most important, high-profile institutions dedicated to children’s health in the UK.

The hospital is located in central London, an area rife with potentially dangerous individuals. For such a venerable, visible institution, the choice and installation of an advanced, highly effective security system to protect patients and staff was extremely important.

Auditing security systems in place
The hospital approached Check Your Security (CYS) in 2010 seeking to significantly upgrade their disparate analogue video surveillance systems. As a starting point, CYS recommended that the hospital undergo their Enterprise Audit service. The Audit evaluated every piece of security and network equipment in place at that time to provide a comprehensive picture of exactly what technology capabilities existed, legacy equipment to be utilised in a future solution, and a list of hardware and software options to meet the hospital’s ambitious security goals.

Upon audit completion, the hospital initiated a tender process to select an integrator and the technologies to meet their advanced security goals. Jonathan Paradi, Mechanical Engineer and Compliance Manager at Great Ormond Street Hospital explained the challenges they were facing, “We had a number of DVRs and analogue cameras hard-wired back to one location. If we had an incident, in order to find and review that video we basically could only hit rewind and then our security room operations would be frozen until we found the right footage. We wanted to upgrade to a 100% IP system for greater flexibility, the ability to review video anywhere, and to be able to track action and people throughout the hospital’s public areas. We were also in need of much better video quality. We couldn’t zoom in on incidents and the image quality could not be used for prosecution of offenders.”

Evaluating recommended technology options
After their selection as the integrator/installer company for the upgrade project, CYS met with GOSH officials to fully explain and then achieve a full understanding on their new system recommendations. CYS provided three or more recommendations each for video management software, cameras and network equipment. The next step was for the relevant GOSH staff to experience the recommended technologies in action at actual end user sites. Check Your Security set up such site visits, but did not accompany the hospital staff. Upon completion of the site visits, the CYS and GOSH teams met again to finalise the new system design and the primary choices for each technology.

The audit, site visit and technology evaluation and selection process was time-consuming and required dedicated education on the part of Check Your Security, but the results and the level of empowerment and satisfaction of GOSH staff speaks volumes to the success of this project and the collaboration between all the parties.

GOSH selected the DVTel intelligent Security Operations Center (iSOC) as the central component of the upgraded IP system. “The DVTel software sold itself,” recalled Paradi, “it was the most user-friendly, it gave us the flexibility we really needed and the ability to utilise existing network infrastructure and a number of the analogue cameras we already had invested in.”

Carl Pace, CYS Managing Director, reported hospital officials are very pleased that the new DVTel system tied together what were more than a dozen DVRs into a single, integrated video management system displayed on a video wall in the hospital’s central command room. “This audit, education, and selection process ensures the hospital has the right IP technology to achieve the fullest integration potential for diverse systems. With DVTel, GOSH has a solution that offers low overhead for long-term use backed by a provider with world-class experience in such critical-use installs. Great Ormond recognises and appreciates that and the time and effort invested to get us to this point.”

Implementing the new solution
Great Ormond Street Hospital selected the DVTel intelligent Security Operations Center (iSOC) from among a total of eight video management software providers originally considered as the central platform for their new IP video management system. The DVTel solution will manage data from more than 160 IP, High Definition (HD) and analogue cameras, covering the entire hospital complex and monitored from a Central Command video wall, along with dedicated workstations throughout the hospital (where required), and possibly in the future from portable devices such as an iPad.

Of all the cameras in operation in the new system, 70% are new IP cameras, but all of the cameras will be on the IP network. Some camera locations require use of High Definition (HD) technology where facial and/or vehicle identification at a distance was needed. Those locations use DVTel-brand cameras and a small number of another brand of megapixel cameras. The system is designed to provide video coverage of the entire Great Ormond campus including all critical patient care areas.

The DVTel iSOC is the first unified services platform available that offers a complete rule-based, distributed architecture in a seamless command and control solution. iSOC represents a significant departure from the “bolted together” integrations that define today’s security offerings. The iSOC’s intuitively executed and unified interface supports seamless authentication, administration, monitoring, event propagation, and control among all video, access control, audio, automation, multi-source data, and credential creation assets throughout the WAN/LAN environment.

With the project just recently completed, Paradi is pleased with what he has seen so far, “The DVTel system is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. Recently, I challenged the guys from CYS to do a test of the system’s video search capabilities—they were able to find the incident I was looking for in a matter of seconds.”

Excitement for future possibilities
Paradi and staff are excited about the future and the enhanced capabilities of their new security technology, “The DVTel system seems much more intelligent in the way we can organise and manage the camera views for what we need. This was illustrated in a demo, which convinced us that the DVTel solution was a better choice for how our security personnel would operate the system. Also during the demo, camera feeds were streamed to an Apple iPad where we could wirelessly view a real-time stream. Needless to say, that technology demonstration was impressive.”

“The goal for our video system is simple: provide higher patient safety.” Paradi recounted an example illustrating how far the hospital has come and their excitement for the future. “We had a large, temporary generator cabled into an important clinical building, and one night the cables were stolen. Luckily, this was before the generator was being actively used to back anything up, so the situation could have been worse. We had one of the old analogue cameras looking at the crime scene, and we couldn’t read the license plate or identify the people. Had that been a DVTel camera on the new system, I’m confident I’d have the information I need. We’ve got a lot of faith in what the new system will be able to do for us.”

For more information please visit www.dvtel.com

view counter