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Use security officers to protect your parking garage area

Healthcare Security Weekly, February 7, 2005

A parking facility patroled by security officers helps ensure that only legitimate patients and visitors use the allotted parking spaces.

"When you have people who work the facility's point of entry, they can make sure employees and other non-patients, such as delivery people, don't take up patient and visitor spaces . . . or that non-disabled motorists don't take up designated handicap spaces," explains William Platts, MS, CPP, CHPA, director of safety and security at Providence Hospital and Medical Centers in Southfield, MI.

Readily available parking enhances patient and visitor satisfaction, making it something worth overseeing and controlling.

"Once a neighborhood resident claimed to be a [hospital] employee and tried to get an employee parking discount rather than pay for a resident parking permit," remembers Ronald Cundiff, MS, CPP, CHPA, director of safety, security, and telecommunications at Lake Forest (IL) Hospital. "We asked her for employee identification (ID), and of course she didn't have any. If someone hadn't been manning the lot, she might have gotten away with it. As it turned out, she used the ruse successfully with a new casher for several days," he says. This incident happened while Cundiff worked as a security and safety director at Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Cundiff recommends using different colored stickers, decals, or hang tags to easily differentiate between patients, visitors, and employees' vehicles. "And always ask for ID," he adds.

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