The Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) carries out nearly one million outpatient appointments, day case procedures and inpatient admissions a year. The hospital on the outskirts of Norwich mainly serves Norfolk and north Suffolk. When the hospital’s CCTV system was scheduled for an upgrade, the hospital direction decided to go all the way, with a control room refit, a migration from analogue to digital, and with FLIR’s most recent Video Management System (VMS).
When NNUH’s video monitoring system was hitting up against its technological limits, there was one challenge: the control room is the main hub of hospital communications and thus essential for 24/7 general response to emergencies. As a result, NNUH required a seamless transition. For the upgrade of the control room, NNUH called in Check Your Security Ltd., a local installer, specialising in IP security. Check Your Security designs, installs commissions and maintains CCTV, access control, perimeter fencing and associated disciplines. The company has other experience of working with universities and hospitals.
Check Your Security first evaluated the physical security in place at NNUH, to determine which products would be optimal for the future proofing towards going fully digital. This process was undertaken by using what the installers call an Enterprise Audit Report (EAR) in which Check Your Security establishes a facility characterisation with the key stakeholders and looks at how the latest technology can be implemented.
VMS
Based on that report, Check Your Security proposed to equip the hospital with a new control room with the latest fully integrated and ergonomic command centre furniture. This shared working environment was tailored to NNUH’s needs and now incorporates an incident planning area, making use of the latest Latitude VMS version from FLIR for real-time situational awareness. The control room now also features a video wall integrating the video feeds of key cameras, with a connection to the barriers, access control and emergency intercoms.
FLIR’s Latitude VMS provides dedicated, web-based and mobile client software. The system’s scalable architecture supports systems of any size or architecture for use across multiple sites, the product company says. Latitude version 7.0 offers viewing, playback, search and export.
Servers and encoders
As part of the transition to digital, the analogue recording equipment has been decommissioned and the existing cameras have been migrated onto FLIR recording servers and analogue video encoders to integrate its existing 76 external PTZ cameras, internal static cameras, intercom help points and barriers. FLIR’s range of encoders and edge devices allow for transition from analogue to digital using existing site infrastructures. FLIR’s Ariel encoder products transform analogue video signals into digital video streams and transmit them via LAN, internet or intranet for live viewing and recording. Ariel encoders support H.264 and bi-directional audio.
Transition
The NNUH security network and control room did have some outdated technology, and legacy hardware across the hospital. But the fitting of FLIR’s Latitude VMS was in fact smooth and cost-effective, allowing the installer to integrate the new solution from FLIR into the NNUH existing infrastructure. The upgraded control room with FLIR’s VMS has resulted in a user-friendly and ergonomic shared workspace and lowered operational costs, enabling better patient control and service. The new products not only take up less space, but has also resulted in lower power consumption. But the most important benefit for NNUH’s control room operators probably is that the internal investigation time has been reduced by 25pc. FLIR points to the Latitude VMS’s client web interface, optimized use of touch screens, thumbnail search for identification of desired clips and its presentation of relevant data and actionable information, allowing control room operators to focus on what is really important.
About the NNUH
NNUH is a National Health Service (NHS) academic teaching hospital near the University of East Anglia (UEA) at Norwich and was the first new NHS teaching hospital built in England for more than 30 years. It is one of the largest hospitals in the United Kingdom in terms of in-patient capacity and is a teaching centre for nurses (adult and children), midwives, doctors, therapists and operating department practitioners, whilst hosting the Norwich GP speciality training scheme.
