The restructuring of hospital security and security management: how to go about it ... what can it accomplish

We have written a number of articles and reports in the past year on the threat to hospital security operations posed by such concepts and buzzwords as re-engineering, restructuring, downsizing, teams, and managed care--to name a few. Whatever doubts you may have about motivation behind these terminologies, and whatever skepticism you may have about the results that will be obtained when they are implemented, they remain, for the next few years at any rate, the facts of life for every security executive. For an increasing number of security professionals, this new ballgame represents an opportunity as well as a threat--an opportunity to enhance security's role in the new scheme of things and for security to become, as it has never been in the past, a more integral part of hospital management. In this report, we'll add three more phrases to your lexicon--value-added security, integrated security control, and self-directed work teams. And we'll give you details on how two hospital security directors are using the concepts they represent to their own and their hospital's advantage.