As physical security technology advances rapidly, the healthcare industry is embracing artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance its physical security measures. Hospitals and healthcare facilities can often be complex environments that require rigorous security protocols to help protect patients, staff and sensitive health information.

The adoption of AI in healthcare security solutions transforms how institutions safeguard their premises, helping ensure a safer and more secure environment for everyone. From detecting unusual behavior to preventing unauthorized access, AI technology is becoming indispensable for healthcare security teams and management. It also provides actionable insights through data analytics, enabling proactive measures, swift responses to threats and optimized processes.

Surprising statistics underscore the need for robust safety and security. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, nearly 1 in 4 patients admitted to hospitals in the U.S. will experience harm. Security risks also extend to the digital world. In 2024, there were 592 cyber attacks involving health data breaches, affecting 259 million Americans, highlighting the vulnerability of healthcare systems to cyber threats.

This guide will explore how these technologies are deployed to tackle such challenges, offering innovative solutions that enhance safety and operational efficiency. It will also cover things to consider when implementing AI-enabled physical security technologies.

Why smarter security matters in healthcare facilities

As shown in the earlier statistics, robust security is required in the healthcare industry. Traditional security measures have significant shortcomings that are detrimental to efficient safety and security operations in healthcare and many other industries.

They are reactive, operating in isolation and require substantial human involvement. For example, a security operator monitoring multiple camera feeds in a control room is highly ineffective at identifying threats. Research shows they miss up to 95% of activity after only 20 minutes.

Investigations can only begin after someone notices something unusual, like a door left ajar or an object in an unusual location. This means that the investigation often occurs hours or even days after the initial event is overlooked, which delays the response and limits your ability to identify and address the root cause of the issue.

Additionally, traditional security systems have limited scalability. As a result, when healthcare facilities grow, these systems require significant upgrades to maintain comprehensive coverage. Integration with other systems and technologies is also tricky. This creates vulnerabilities and gaps in security coverage, limiting the security team’s abilities.

What is AI in healthcare security?

AI in healthcare security refers to using AI technologies to enhance the safety and protection of healthcare facilities, staff and patients. This involves using AI-enabled systems to improve video security, access control, data protection and emergency response capabilities.

The security technology landscape is rapidly changing, shifting to a proactive approach. AI-driven analytics use machine learning to provide real-time data analysis and more accurate alerts. They learn from past data, improving their ability to distinguish between true and false events. This allows security teams to focus on genuine incidents, rather than spending time monitoring video feeds and responding to false alarms.

For example, AI-powered video security can instantly alert security personnel to unusual activity, such as loitering in restricted areas or intruders trying to gain unauthorized access, enabling a quick response. Additionally, an integrated access control system can change permissions in real time based on current data and deny access rights to secure the area.

The role of AI in improving healthcare security

AI plays a critical role in healthcare safety and security. Below are some ways AI can support security operations in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and other healthcare facilities

Threat detection

AI-powered technology can enable proactive operations for healthcare security teams. When a potential threat arises, such as a BOLO suspect or an individual with a weapon, AI video analytics will detect it and trigger alerts to video security operators, notifying them of an unfolding event. With this proactive threat detection, healthcare security teams can stay on top of events and prevent a threat from escalating into a critical situation.

Unusual activity

Video security systems with AI-powered video analytics can also identify anomalous events as they occur in a monitored area. Unusual activity, such as a door left ajar, loitering after hours and crowd formation, must be brought to the attention of security teams. AI-powered cameras can enable this.

Detect hazards

Healthcare facilities are busy environments. Therefore, keeping them clean and obstruction-free is essential to preventing slips, trips, falls or worse that could harm patients, staff and visitors. Spillages, rubbish on the floor and exposed cables can pose a safety hazard to people. However, when detected by AI video analytics, security teams are alerted so that the hazard can be removed and safety maintained.

Prevent patient elopement

Some patients may put themselves in harm's way when they elope. Keeping track of patients and ensuring their safety in a healthcare facility is vital to providing proper care. Video security and access control can support this.

If a patient wanders off, AI-enabled security cameras will detect this and alert the security team. The technology may also allow for searching for the eloped patient by their appearance. As a response, the team can trigger door locks to prevent the patient from moving further away while staff attend to the situation.

Access control authentication

Using biometric readers, AI-powered access control systems can better secure restricted areas, such as operating and drug stock rooms, than traditional systems. Fingerprints, iris scans and facial recognition accurately verify an individual’s identity, making it difficult for bad actors to access restricted spaces.

AI-enabled healthcare access control solutions also identify unusual or suspicious activities. This can include individuals trying to access a system or network with incorrect credentials multiple times.

Benefits of AI in healthcare security

AI offers numerous benefits in healthcare security, enhancing the safety of healthcare environments. Here are some of the key advantages:

• Help safeguard staff, patients and visitors: AI-powered physical security systems help detect and alert security teams to potential threats. From an unauthorized individual trying to gain access to a restricted space to a visitor being aggressive with staff, AI can support security teams to maintain a safe healthcare environment.
• Faster responses: Using AI analytics, operators can be instantly alerted when a threat arises. This quick detection helps healthcare security teams initiate faster responses to potential threats, mitigating risks and maintaining safety.
• Improved data protection: AI enhances cybersecurity by identifying and responding to unusual network activity and potential cyberattacks in real time. Deviations from normal patterns can be detected by AI, helping healthcare organizations protect sensitive data and systems.
• Cost efficiencies: By reducing the need for manual monitoring and improving security operation efficiency, AI can lead to significant cost savings, optimize resource utilization and better decision-making and strategy formulation.

Considerations for implementing AI in healthcare

Although AI can simplify healthcare security operations, it is a complex technology. If implemented and utilized incorrectly, it can lead to unintended results that can be detrimental to healthcare safety.

To get the most out of AI and ensure its successful implementation in physical security, it is essential to address its ethical implications and challenges around integration, security and data privacy.

1. Data privacy

As video security, access control, sensor technology and other AI-enabled systems become increasingly integrated into healthcare security operations, they can become prime targets for bad actors looking to exploit existing vulnerabilities and access sensitive patient data. These security systems collect and store vast amounts of data that could be attractive to cyber criminals seeking financial gain or leverage against healthcare organizations.

As a result, it’s important to consider data privacy compliance, especially when using technology like facial recognition and biometric access control. This would require you to comply with local, state and national data protection regulations such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

To minimize cybersecurity risks and comply with strict regulatory requirements, it is essential to implement robust data protection measures when installing AI-driven physical security solutions.

2. Integration

Implementing AI security systems that integrate is vital to a successful security operation that helps keep healthcare environments safe. If your facility has an existing video security or access control system, it is recommended that you seek an AI solution that integrates with what you already have.

If you’re seeking to replace your existing systems, it’s wise to choose an AI-enabled solution that has integration capabilities. This enables you to connect other systems to it for enhanced safety and security operations.

3. Ethical and legal implications

When implementing AI security systems, healthcare organizations must use them responsibly by setting strict privacy safeguards and communicating how their security systems are used transparently. This helps alleviate any privacy concerns and maintain public trust.

Furthermore, it is vital to rigorously test AI systems and use diverse, high-quality training data during development to ensure fairness and accountability. This minimizes bias and prevents AI algorithms, trained on large datasets, from inadvertently reflecting existing biases. Human validation of AI responses remains critical in mitigating bias and ensuring responsible AI implementation.

4. Training requirements

Another significant consideration is training and upskilling your healthcare security personnel and management. AI-powered security systems necessitate new competencies and procedures for your security team. Therefore, continuous staff training programs are essential to enable them to utilize AI effectively and responsibly.

How Avigilon supports intelligent healthcare environments

Avigilon provides comprehensive AI-enabled security technologies to help healthcare organizations safeguard people, secure facilities and meet stringent data privacy and security standards. Its full suite of on-premise and cloud-based security solutions connects video, access control, intrusion detection, sensors and third-party systems to extend across your healthcare facility.

This unified technology ecosystem empowers you with 24/7 visibility, awareness and control to help ensure staff, patient and visitor safety and the ability to respond to events quickly. Furthermore, our AI solutions are purpose-built with a ​“human-in-the-loop” approach to assist and augment your security team’s capabilities.

Conclusion

The integration of AI into healthcare security presents a transformative opportunity to enhance safety, efficiency and overall protection. AI-powered solutions offer advantages over traditional security measures by enabling real-time threat detection, preventing patient elopement and streamlining access control. The benefits are clear: improved protection for staff, patients and visitors, faster threat responses, enhanced data protection and cost efficiencies.

However, healthcare organizations must address considerations such as data privacy, integration challenges and ethical and legal aspects when implementing AI technologies. With careful planning and the right technology partners, like Avigilon, healthcare facilities can leverage AI to create safer and more secure environments.

As technology continues to evolve, AI’s role in healthcare security will become increasingly vital, making it essential for organizations to explore and adopt these intelligent solutions to safeguard their operations and the well-being of those in their care.