iXP Provides a Comprehensive Communications Center Assessment for the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions (JHMI)

Baltimore, MD

Sector:Healthcare Campus
Focus: Operations and Technology
Started: 2007 - 2010

Situation

The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions (JHMI) is a collective name for the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System, and the health divisions of The Johns Hopkins University, Howard County General Hospital, the Kennedy Krieger Institute, the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. iXP was engaged to conduct a comprehensive Communications Center Assessment for JHMI, specifically for The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System, located at 600 N. Wolfe Street in Baltimore, Maryland. The vision of The Johns Hopkins Hospital is to be the world's preeminent health care institution. The Hospital was recently named the number one hospital in 2010-2011 ranking of the Best Hospitals in the United States, by the U.S. News and World Report.

The scope of the Assessment performed by iXP was broad based and included an examination of the Communications Center and public safety and security technology systems that report into the Communications Center for the downtown Baltimore, MD campus. The technologies assessed included: Radio, Video, Dispatching, Access Control, Infant Abduction, Fire Alarm, Stat Paging and Time Synchronization Systems.

Solution

iXP conducted an assessment of the Communications Center with an emphasis on documenting the current environment, providing a comparison to similar operations and making recommendations for the enhancement of the Communications Center, its operations, and technologies. iXP's report was used as the blueprint for the construction of a new Corporate Security Communications Center placed in service in 2010 in conjunction with a major expansion of campus buildings and public safety responsibilities. In addition, iXP was tasked with performing an operational analysis of the Corporate Security Department including a review of Standard Operating Procedures, Post Orders, Staffing and workload metrics.

Results

The results of iXP's Assessment were reported to the Vice President of Corporate Security in a comprehensive document that detailed our Findings, the Associated Risks and a series of Recommendations. As a final deliverable, iXP was requested to provide high-level budgetary pricing to allow Hopkins to develop a strategy to implement the recommendations in the Assessments to coincide with available capital and operational funding.

Subsequent to iXP's initial Assessment, the Corporate Security Department contracted with iXP to identify solutions that would integrate into their business operations and solve a specific problem. First, iXP researched solutions and developed a formal RFP for the purchase of a Computer Aided Dispatching & Records Management System. This included developing a submission review of the responses, ranking the submissions from vendors and helping facilitate making a selection with the internal committee. The second project was to identify research and evaluate Personal Alarm Device solutions to give personnel the ability to activate a device in the event of an emergency sending a distress signal to Corporate Security dispatchers.

Value Delivered. Problem Solved.