Vulnerability & Risk Assessment

Healthcare facilities pose unique and complex personal safety and physical security challenges for staff and medical providers. Facilities often have expansive parking lots or garages, multiple entry points with unattended egress doors, significant physical assets, a high number of female staff, and are the site of human suffering, medical miracles, family discord, and displays of emotions.

Protecting facilities, patients, visitors, and staffing professionals requires an understanding of assets protected, an understanding of what incidents may occur, and developing security programs based on:

• Technologies based on risk assessment and are properly managed maintained, and operated,
• Policies and procedures that support the organization’s mission while maintaining industry compliance,
• Organization‐wide participation and buy‐in,
• Security and Facility programs that identify risk before a significant incident occurs and are proactive in reducing the potential for incidents.

Security assessments are designed to provide healthcare Facilities and with a means to help them identify areas of risk, focus on potential physical security gaps, and proactively enhance their institution’s preparedness. No one-size-fits-all instrument will comprehensively assess the needs of every organization. It is important therefore to view each assessment as a beginning, one element of an expansive organizational process that more fully delves into the identification of organizational assets, the specific threats, risks, and vulnerabilities that may impact these assets, and the development and implementation of multi‐modal strategies to mitigate
these threats, risks, and vulnerabilities.