The business of Security^™

John Riggi (Host): Hospitals invest significant resources in clinical quality, patient experience, branding, and consumer growth strategies. Yet one of the most immediate factors shaping whether patients choose an organization, trust it, and return for future care is often overlooked: whether they feel physically safe in the hospital.

Welcome to the AHA Bringing Value Series from the American Hospital Association. In this series, we speak with AHA business partners and learn how they support AHA hospital and health system members. I'm John Riggi, national advisor for cybersecurity and risk at the American Hospital Association. I am joined today by my good friend, Jeremy Baumann, Chief Executive Officer at Corporate Security Advisors.

Today, we'll explore how a hospital's physical security program can move beyond the role of protecting patients and staff to also helping contribute to the organization's growth, reputation, and financial stability. Jeremy, welcome.

Jeremy Baumann: John, thank you for having me. It's good to be back on the show

Host: Great to have you as always. And again, thank you and CSA for your strong partnership and support in our mutual mission to help protect hospitals, patients, and the communities we serve. Jeremy, let's start with the core question. How can a hospital's physical security program influence whether patients choose that organization and come back?

Jeremy Baumann: Well, quite simply, John, we see that patients will choose another provider. They will delay care. They might discourage others from actually going to a hospital. They might avoid higher value services that depend on trust and repeat engagement. A poor environment of safety can undermine the entire patient experience. It can damage reputation and certainly erode volume of patients. And a strong one, on the other hand, can reinforce trust and support, loyalty. It can strengthen the organization's position in the market and its financial health and performance overall.

Host: Yeah, thanks for that, Jeremy. It's pretty clear that a lot of patients, go to institutions based on word of mouth, and that reputational harm over a violent incident can certainly take years to years to overcome. So, as we're discussing, patients often form opinions about hospitals before they ever interact with a clinician. What aspects of the physical security environment most shape whether a patient feels safe, and how does that affect trust and consumer choice?

Jeremy Baumann: Well, John, and I think that ties into what you just previously mentioned in terms of a violent incident can damage whether or not patients will show up at a hospital. But it even starts before that. It doesn't even require a violent incident to have taken place. Patients pick up a sense of security from their environment that begins when they pull on the property. How secure is the parking environment? How well lit is that? Are there people who shouldn't be in the parking structure present? The visibility and professionalism of security personnel as a patient is walking into the hospital from the parking area. How is the visitor access flowing? Is it orderly? Does it feel secure? Is there management of disruptive behavior taking place in an emergency department? Does the overall environment feel calm, controlled, well led? These are the signals that first start to influence the confidence, and it's this confidence that influences the choices that patients make when they're forming an opinion about a healthcare environment or a hospital

John Riggi (Host): I totally agree, Jeremy. And as you know, with my background, previously in law enforcement in the FBI, we often talked about the sociological theories of signs of disorder making communities feel unsafe and citizens feel unsafe, and perhaps signs of disorder and lack of visible security or lack of professionalism of security actually leading to increased crime.

So Jeremy, based on what we've just discussed, what do you feel is the difference between actual safety and perceived safety? And really, why do both matter if a hospital wants to protect reputation and attract patients?

Jeremy Baumann: It's a great question, John. And it's one that we talk about on every single engagement, every single hospital leader that we meet with to talk about their security program. Keeping people safe is just half of the mission. The other half of the mission is ensuring that they feel safe.

And so as you can imagine, actual safety is really about no incidents of harm to patients and staff. But you can have actual safety, you can have zero incidents, and still lack a perception of safety from the environmental factors that we discussed previously from the lack of control of the environment. And so, it's really important to strike this tone of the perception of safety. Because if we think about what you just discussed, crime prevention through environmental design, broken windows theory, we think about all of the underlying, psychological aspects that impact a person's perception of safety, we have to strike a balance by getting all of those correct. That comes down to the lighting and the environment, the competency and the ability to communicate of the security officers in the hospital. That all comes down to making sure that people also feel safe, whether that's the patients, whether that's staff, the response times of uniform security staff when there's an incident in a hospital, can contribute to that. And all of that perception of safety then directly leads back to staff's ability to provide high quality care and the patient's ability to focus on being in a healing-centered environment.

Host: Couldn't agree more, Jeremy. The reality is unfortunately that healthcare workers, for example, are assaulted four to five times more than any other profession, which I find astounding coming from law enforcement background. And again, clinicians, healthcare staff, and patients should focus on healing and being healed rather than whether they're physically safe from an internal or outside threat.

you know, we have enough problems trying to recruit and retain nurses and clinicians, and the last thing they should be worried about is whether they will be safe at work. So, what are the signs that a hospital security program is helping strengthen patient confidence rather than simply responding to incidents behind the scenes, right? We always want to focus on prevention rather than response after an incident.

Jeremy Baumann: Yeah, John. And it's actually the prevention that is the most cost-effective, over and above just being the right thing to do. The external signs that a hospital security program is helping strengthen patient confidence, it comes down to what you're able to measure.

We see signs of that in terms of the financial performance of the hospital. We see signs of that in terms of patient surveys after care has been delivered. We see signs of that in employee opinion surveys. It is amazing how much you can impact the quality of patient perceived care, the quality of staff opinions through dramatic improvements to the security program. And what we see is that there's an ability to measure a change in staff turnover.

Right now, I believe the latest numbers are at about $47,000 per clinician turnover is the cost of replacement. When we're actually able to measure that you've got whole digit percentage point change and improvement simply from going in and overhauling the security program and making it a patient care-centric, staff protective-centric healthcare security team, that you're actually able to measure that reduction in turnover and attribute that to the cost of investment in making those changes.

Again, the prevention, having an intelligence-led security program that focuses on stopping bad things from happening, stopping those violent incidents from happening, stopping that clinician assault, it's actually less expensive than simply focusing on the response. And there's a much better cost justification picture when you take that pathway.

Host: Yeah. Couldn't agree any more, Jeremy. So by your approach being a very really astute approach focusing on intelligence-led, as we did in counterterrorism and many other complex crimes when I was at the FBI, and focusing on the bottom line savings. So instead of looking at security as a cost center, it really can be looked at as a cost savings center.

And last year, for example, the AHA published a report which showed that violence in our hospitals and around our hospitals and against staff and patients costs hospitals almost $19 billion a year. So if you can reduce that cost, and you can reduce the turnover in clinicians costs, you really become, I wouldn't say a profit center, but a cost savings center.

So, Jeremy, finally, can you tell our listeners one practical place to start if they want to better align security with patient acquisition, retention, and brand trust?

Jeremy Baumann: Yeah. The best way to start is to get an outside assessment from a group of people who have been successful doing it, been successful building programs in the healthcare setting, who've got a track record of success, who can help guide you along this journey. you would never make the investment to build a house without getting a set of architectural drawings in advance.

In the same way, you should never look at overhauling a program without getting the outside expertise from an organization that has a track record of having done that successfully for many, many years. And that's where we can really help an organization navigate the right level of investment, the right level of security program that you need for your specific healthcare organization, whether you are a 25-bed critical access hospital in rural America, or whether you're one of the largest healthcare brands in the country.

It's really the track record of having successfully navigated all of these challenges before, of having a demonstrable success, of being able to build a high-performing security team, and actually being able to link that to financial improvement that is really going to be the best path to success as you look at this particular, opportunity for your organization.

Host: Thanks, Jeremy. Truly appreciate your really sophisticated and aligned approach to physical security for healthcare organizations, our staff, and our patients. That's why you're a vetted and recommended preferred provider for your services from the American Hospital Association. So, Jeremy, I want to thank you for joining us today and sharing your really valuable insights and perspective.

To our listeners, if you'd like to learn more about Corporate Security Advisors, please visit corporatesecurityadvisors.com. This has been an AHA Bringing Value series, brought to you by the American Hospital Association. Thanks for listening, and thanks for everything you all do every day to defend networks, care for your patients, and serve your communities. Stay safe, everyone.