Ep 108: Response to Hospital Shootings Revisited
Episode 108
Published Mar 10, 2025
Last updated Mar 5, 2026
Duration: 35:27
Episode Summary
In today’s episode we revisit hospital shootings and explore balancing patient care with staff safety, integrating hospital and law enforcement responses, and implementing effective preparedness strategies to protect healthcare environments from violent incidents.
Episode Notes
Episode 108 revisits the critical topic of responding to shootings in healthcare facilities. Instructors from the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response (NCIER) delve into the unique challenges faced by healthcare facilities during active shooter events.
This thought-provoking episode offers guidance on balancing healthcare providers' duty of care with personal safety during violent incidents. Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of the differences between targeted shootings and active shooter events, learning how responses should adapt to each scenario. The discussion explores strategies for seamless integration of hospital incident command systems with public safety command posts, emphasizing the importance of collaboration between healthcare facilities and law enforcement.
Practical preparedness tips are a key focus, with actionable recommendations for training staff in high-risk areas such as ICUs and operating rooms to make rapid, informed decisions. The panel also shares valuable insights on enhancing hospital security through professional risk assessments, improved access control, and proactive communication.
This episode is an essential resource for healthcare leaders, emergency managers, and public safety professionals committed to safeguarding patients and staff. By tuning in, listeners will gain the knowledge and strategies needed to strengthen their facility's readiness for unexpected violent incidents. Don't miss this opportunity to stay ahead of potential threats and ensure the safety of your healthcare environment.
View this episode on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/yJvD_U6GlT4
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:A few weeks ago, we recorded a podcast talking about responding to shootings in hospitals. That generated quite a few questions and some comments, and so we're gonna revisit that topic today and dive in a little bit more. Healthcare facility responses to shootings, stick around.
Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management Podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, your podcast host. I'm joined by three of my other NCIER instructors here at the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response. I got Bruce Scott, Billy Perry, Ron Otterbacher, back in the house. Thank you gentlemen for coming back in.
Billy Perry:
Thank you.
Bill Godfrey:
I appreciate it. So I wanted to put the original team back together that talked about this. You may recall a few weeks ago we discussed the shootings in the hospitals. So, we had a number of questions and I want to kind of pick up and drill down into a little bit of these.
And interestingly, a couple of these were ones that we talked about after we got off air and said, you know, we didn't really talk about this topic. And one of 'em right off the bat is, how should healthcare staff, doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, healthcare staff, balance their duty of care to patients, duty to act, against the need for personal safety during a shooting incident? Whether it's an active shooter or just a, you know, domestic whatever, a shooting attack, how do you balance those two? And Bruce, why don't you start it off a little bit. Talk about the Duty to Act law that applies to all healthcare providers here in, at least here in Florida. I assume it's gonna differ a little bit from state to state.
Bruce Scott:
Yeah, it'll be different in other places, but I really think the first question needs to be answered is the legality issues, right? Is it abandonment if they leave that patient's side for their own self preservation? I really believe it's a personal decision. I don't know that laws or processes or policies are gonna dictate how a person acts when bad things are happening to good people. So I really think it is a, I think it's a personal issue how you're gonna address that. My guess is that all the people that I know in that field, they would not leave their patients unless they were made to. They're very dedicated to their patients and taking care of their patients. They have a strong desire to put patient safety before theirs, but I don't know that that's the case everywhere.
Bill Godfrey:
And I think that's fair. I would venture to guess that most healthcare providers in, you know, healthcare facilities, whether, now I mentioned hospitals, but whether it's hospitals or surgery centers, you know, any of those events, I don't think their first act is gonna be to run away from the patient because something got announced over the PA. I think it's going to be affected significantly by proximity. There's a difference to how a healthcare provider may react when the shooting happens in the hallway, 20 feet from the room that they're in, versus, I've heard an announcement that something has happened in the emergency room or in the lobby or something like that.
Ron, you're involved in security for hospitals and hospital systems. As an industry, you know, nationally, where do you think healthcare facilities are with this issue of the legal duty to act and abandonment of patients versus a violent attack that people have a right to protect themselves?
Ron Otterbacher:
I think, much like Bruce said, most people feel that, you know, they take the duty to act to heart. They don't wanna leave their patient. But again, if you look at the majority of nurses, how many patients are they caring for on that floor at that time? You know, because they stay with one, have they abandoned the others? The other thing to consider is, if they become a victim, who's taking care of anybody. So those are all decisions they have to think about. I'm not saying anyone needs to take off and run, but that's a decision they're gonna have to make right at that time.
And, you know, I do look at it that, you know, I've changed my perspective. When I first got into healthcare, we were talking about workplace violence, and a lot of nurses, the majority of nurses I talked to said, well that's just part of the job. And part of that is us educating them to say, no, it's not. No one has a right to hurt you while you're doing your job. Same with this, we're not saying you should just take off running because you hear an announcement that maybe happened in the hospital next door. But you should think about it and say, okay, what can I do? How can I protect my patients as best I can? How can I protect myself? Do I, what options do I have available? And you know, it comes down to the decision tree that we use all the time. What are you doing to make your decision? How are you weighing it out? And then standing behind that decision.
Bill Godfrey:
Billy, I'm gonna put you in kind of a weird spot. You know, your time as a law enforcement officer in and out of certainly lots of hospitals, you're familiar with the kind of the typical layout of the hallways and rooms. If your, if there's healthcare staff up on a regular floor, you know, med surg floor, something like that, they got the typical hallway with the patient rooms and the doors, and of course there's rarely locks on any of that stuff, what are some of the things that those people could do if they hear an announcement, you know, for a lockdown, for a violent event or something like that? What's some of the things that they could do to protect themselves and their patients if they're gonna stay put?
Billy Perry:
I think barricading yourself. Turning the lights off that you can, and being quiet, truthfully. I think making yourself not a target. And also if you can let people know that you can or cannot see anything. I don't know of anybody being here now, 'cause one of the biggest things is locating where the problem is. Wouldn't you agree, Ron?
Ron Otterbacher:
Yes, sir. Absolutely.
Billy Perry:
And I think, I think determining where the problem is is half the solution.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, I think that probably makes sense. Now, what about doors at the, I mean, obviously they could get all the doors closed to the patient rooms if they have time. What about the doors to the hallways, the end doors? I typically see them, they're fire doors. They're typically held open all the time by magnets. This is for the units that aren't locked all the time, right, the mental care, or-
Billy Perry:
Dementia.
Bill Godfrey:
Dementia and the pediatric units, they're always locked, but just for a regular floor that isn't locked, is there value in getting those doors at the end of the hallway closed?
Billy Perry:
Do they even lock, Ron?
Ron Otterbacher:
No.
Billy Perry:
I didn't think so.
Bruce Scott:
They can't. They're marked exit.
Ron Otterbacher:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
Yeah.
Billy Perry:
Yeah, so I mean, you can, it would let people know. But, I think it's like tracers, they work both ways, you know? I mean, tracers let you know where your rounds are going. They'll also let the enemy know where your rounds are coming from. And I think, you know, it's gonna barricade out somebody seeking cover and it could, as much as it could letting you know that the bad guys coming in, it could also be an impediment to somebody that's generally seeking cover. I think take cover as close as you can personally, and then be a good intel source.
Bill Godfrey:
So, this next question I thought was a really, really interesting one. Is there a difference in the way we as, this is coming from a healthcare person, is there a difference in the way that we should respond or that law enforcement will respond if it's a targeted shooting and they provide the example of like a domestic dispute versus what we would typically consider an active shooter where they're just trying to kill as many people is they can?
So, two parts to that question. Is there a difference in the way the healthcare people should respond? And then is there a difference in the law enforcement response? Bruce, take a swing at, from the healthcare side. Is there a difference in how they should respond to a targeted shooting as opposed to an active shooter event?
Bruce Scott:
I think that it depends, right? If you witness that targeted event, then you probably know it's a targeted event. However, if you're across the hall or in another room or a different part of that facility, you have to treat it as an active shooter until proven otherwise, right? So I think that if you don't have any personal firsthand knowledge of what the exact situation is, you just assume, if you will, that this is worst case scenario until proven otherwise. I know law enforcement feels that way, right? You're gonna continue until proven otherwise.
Ron Otterbacher:
[Ron] It's an investigative outcome.
Bruce Scott:
Right, yeah.
Billy Perry:
That's gonna be, my question is how do I know?
Ron Otterbacher:
Right.
Billy Perry:
How do I know which one it is? And the only way I can, I mean, not the only way, but one of the ways I can see is if he said, or she said, I'm gonna kill him or her, smokes him and then puts the gun down and goes, okay, I'm done.
Bruce Scott:
Right. Some witness.
Billy Perry:
Because we have an old saying, if you're suicidal, you're homicidal.
Ron Otterbacher:
Right.
Billy Perry:
And if you're homicidal, you're also homicidal. And so, I mean, you know.
Bill Godfrey:
It's pithy.
Billy Perry:
Right. Exactly.
Bruce Scott:
Yeah. Right?
Billy Perry:
So I mean, if you're gonna kill this one, who's stopping you from killing the other, so.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, Ron, that thought on, for healthcare workers, if they have, I think Bruce makes a good point, if they do have some knowledge, you know, we talked in the last podcast that there is a significant percentage of shootings that occur in a hospital facility that are, you know, I think we referred to it as a euthanizing motive.
Billy Perry:
Right, 14%.
Bill Godfrey:
Or a mercy killing or something like that. If it's that, and you've seen that or you have some knowledge of that, you know, Mrs. Jones has been suffering and you know, the husband shoots her and then shoots himself and then that's the end of it. Does that change the equation for the healthcare staff? If, like Bruce says, if they do have some knowledge about what's happened and why.
Ron Otterbacher:
Again, I think that's an investigative outcome that you have to look at and see if you can figure it out after, you know. Although it may seem like that, you still don't know, you know, unless you recognize Mr. Jones and Ms. Jones 'cause he's been coming in every day to see it. And he comes in, you see he looks distraught, he walks in, shoots her, and then shoots himself, then you know, you may have an idea that's what's happened, but is that person in their right mind when they go to euthanize the other person? Maybe it is complete act of mercy. You know, I don't know. I haven't been in that situation. But you as a healthcare worker still have to treat it that maybe they're waiting for something else and it's beyond my capability as a healthcare worker to address the armed person inside. That's a public safety law enforcement situation until they get in there and take care of stuff then. Yeah, that's their response.
Bill Godfrey:
Perfect segue. So we get a shooting in a hospital. I think you're right Billy, your comment, we're gonna assume it's an active shooter till otherwise. How does that unfold for law enforcement? At what point do you say, okay, wait a minute, this is something different. We're gonna switch gears. Talk us through that. Billy, you go first and then Ron, I'm gonna come to you.
Billy Perry:
Well, to quote Travis, it depends. You know, I think-
Bill Godfrey:
[Bill] Travis saying "it depends" is gonna become as famous as Jill saying "never do math in public."
Billy Perry:
Exactly. So, but I, you know, 'because we in Jacksonville, we've had several shootings at some big nationwide places and they went out as active and they ended up being targeted, and honestly it becomes readily apparent pretty quick. And I think the initial responding officers pretty much nailed it down, coupled with it's 2024, we're 25% of the way through the 21st century. And so, everywhere is covered in cameras. So you can watch the people come on generally, see exactly where they go in minutes from it happening and seeing what happened. If that makes sense.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Billy Perry:
Generally that's what's gonna happen. I know that's what would happen here where I work and I know that's what happens at the national chain places that I'm referring to.
Bill Godfrey:
Ron, your thoughts on this?
Ron Otterbacher:
I think it, as you look at it, we hope for the best and treat it for the worst. You know, you've gotta get someone in there to make the determination, that's the end of it. You know, even if it's a mercy type killing. How do you know that Mr. Jones didn't walk in there, shoot his wife and maybe it took two shots to euthanize her and that he's just sitting there waiting for someone to come in and take them out. So there's all kinds of things that we have to look at. And again, I'd say, is healthcare prepared to take that action? I say, no, they're not. They need to wait for public safety, law enforcement to get there and make that move in there to make that determination.
So many times we see that we have situations that end up being suicide by cop. They had the intent of doing that, but they didn't have the capability, and so they're waiting for law enforcement to respond so law enforcement can take care of what they didn't have the ability to do. So, there's so many things you have to think about in these situations.
Bill Godfrey:
So, I'm gonna move us on to this next question, which we talked about in the last podcast, but we didn't go very deep on it. And this question had to do, basically it was, can you talk more, expand upon how a hospital, with their hospital incident command system, whether they use it frequently or don't use it frequently, how does that get plugged in to the Public Safety Incident Management command post that's going to be outside. It's going to be, you know, somewhere in a parking lot in the initial setup.
What are some strategies? Should hospital have leadership representation in the public safety command post outside? Does there come a point when the public safety command post would transition to join the hospital incident command post inside? These were all kinds of questions that flowed out of this. Ron, what are your thoughts? You're a little bit closer to the HICS stuff.
Ron Otterbacher:
I think the best way to handle it is through one of your positions at your command post. And I know at our hospital incident command system, our corporate command post, we've got a liaison there. That's their job is to liaison with everyone. That's the person who should be heading to the operational command post and say, you know, this is what we're doing. Because the hospital's incident command post is worried about patients, taking care of patients. What we're gonna do, how we're gonna, you know, what resource do we need? You know, everything else. Where public safety's incident command post is worried about, you know, stop the killing and stop the dying, and then we go from there. So if you send your liaison and use your liaison properly, then that person can carry the message if the hospital incident commander has questions about what's coming.
The other thing is, and we've talked about it ad nauseum, is you have to train with each other. And you don't, you know, a lot of times we'll have full scale exercise. We'll have all these public safety people come into the corporate command post and say, yeah, this is what we're gonna do and this is what, but we know when we have an actual incident, they're out at the operational command post. They're not inside at the corporate command post. So you have to train so you have a real understanding of real life and how it's gonna operate there.
Bill Godfrey:
So Bruce, Ron mentioned the idea of the hospital sending out somebody to be a liaison, and I agree with that. My concern and my experience from the few times that I had major incidents unfold at hospitals is that the liaison is not a decision maker and it is basically just a person to try to make and receive phone calls to the decision maker to get decisions made. And it really, in my personal experience, which is anecdotal, it really hampered our ability to move things along, get quick decisions, fix problems that have come up. What are your thoughts on how to connect?
Bruce Scott:
I 100% agree. I don't know how many times I looked and the person that was my liaison officer and said, whoever you're calling is the person I need here. Right? I need that decision maker here, at least early on. But on our boards, we teach this advanced class, there's a, on the incident command board it says, "Fix it now," right? There's a whole list of things that can be fixed immediately if they're not communicating, whether it be through a liaison officer or standing side by side. It's something that needs to be fixed now, because it's only a matter of time before you're gonna get into each other's way, potentially get somebody hurt, somebody killed. And you're, what your actions are doing in public safety is affecting normal operations in the hospital or vice versa. So, in short, fix it now. Whatever works for you based on training, experience, getting together, having conversations about it during blue skies, go with that plan.
Bill Godfrey:
I like the way you said that, that may be the takeaway from this is saying to the person who's making that phone call-
Bruce Scott:
Whoever you're talking to.
Bill Godfrey:
Whoever you're calling is who I need here right now. So, wherever they are, let's go get them.
Bruce Scott:
Correct.
Bill Godfrey:
And you know, if I need to send a law enforcement detail to go get them, I will do that, 'cause I need them here to make decisions. Billy, I think you mentioned the last, I think it was you, the last podcast, you talked a little bit about hospitals being a maze and how that can become an impediment or a hurdle to the law enforcement operation unfolding. How important is it to get, in your opinion, senior leadership from the hospital in the command post to help facilitate and fix those problems that law enforcement are having in executing their tactical mission?
Billy Perry:
I think it's very important. I think it's also important, like I said, to have a guide with the contact teams. If they are security, you know, if that's part of their job. I think having somebody to give them aid in navigating the literal maze that is every hospital.
Bill Godfrey:
Ron, what's your thoughts? How willing do you think some of the, and I assume it would be the security, members of the security team that would be asked to be a representative on these contact teams. Is that gonna be an impediment? Is it not gonna be a problem? Or is it going to be the Travis, it depends answer?
Ron Otterbacher:
No, I think it wouldn't be an impediment. It would again, come down to explaining what you need them to do. You're not asking them to go clear the building. You're asking them to get to a place where they can clear the building. And you're asking them, how can we get to this area? Or if I go to this area, take an MRI area, you know, what are the dangers of going there, because we're all carrying big metal things?
Billy Perry:
Right.
Ron Otterbacher:
And so those are all important things they need to know. And having the right person to explain that to 'em and get them there safely and then just, you know. I look at it kinda like an RTF look, your job is to protect this guy who's getting you everywhere you need to go. And who has the largest set of keys or the largest set of access control cards that can get you into these areas. I think it comes down to, and again, you need to train together. That you need to have a scenario where, hey, I need a security officer to walk us around this place. You don't have to say anything to anyone, we don't have to walk around with guns. Take us here, take us here, take us here. And then we can see where we fall short and where we have areas of improvement, you know, and that's the key thing with everything. If we wait till the incident's occurring, then we've lost pretty much because no one's prepared for what's needed. So now you can go to a security officer say, "I need you to go." "What? No, no."
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Ron Otterbacher:
You know?
Bruce Scott:
That's my fear. I think it's a personal decision, right? That person's gonna have to make a decision based on the circumstances at that exact instance in time. And as responders, we gotta be prepared for whatever the answer is. No, I'm not going, here's my keys. No, I'm not going, I can't help you. Or I'm gonna go with you and if you do, I expect you Otter and Billy to make sure that we don't get our security officer killed-
Billy Perry:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
As we move down range. So again, I think it's a personal decision.
Billy Perry:
And Ron said where he works, they have go bags that have the blueprints in them. Correct?
Ron Otterbacher:
Correct. And the keys, access control keys and stuff like that.
Billy Perry:
Which is better than nothing. But I would much rather have-
Ron Otterbacher:
A person.
Billy Perry:
A guide saying, come with me. Or even saying, go up there and take a left, now go up there and take a right and, 'cause that's faster.
Bill Godfrey:
Amen. It could be very disorienting trying to figure out.
Billy Perry:
[Billy] Orient yourself on a blueprint.
Bill Godfrey:
Where am I and where am I trying to get to, absolutely agree.
Now, I want to do a quick side tangent here on the MRI suites, because you mentioned the MRI. From my perspective, and my perspective since I didn't say it right the first time. From my perspective, MRI suites can be an incredibly dangerous place to be, especially for police officers with weapons. And so I think my message to law enforcement would be, when it says MRI suite on the door, stay out of it until you've got somebody that works in that suite that can go in and tell you whether the thing is active, whether it's inactive, what the danger are, how far you can go, things like that. But that's me as a fire EMS responder because I understand how strong those magnets are and how bad that outcome can be. But what do you guys think about that? What's the, we we all know there's risk in entering an MRI suite. We all know that we don't know enough about it.
Billy Perry:
Well, I've seen pictures where they have desks and everything-
Ron Otterbacher:
Sure.
Billy Perry:
In the room stuck to 'em. So I'm thinking if Duffus McDufferson has cruised in there with a blaster, it's probably gonna be glued to the MRI machines.
Bill Godfrey:
It's under control.
Billy Perry:
I think it's pretty, I think we're cleared.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Billy Perry:
I could be wrong, but I'm not, I don't wanna walk in there with my staccato and rifle, you know, because, like I said, I've never seen it firsthand, but I've seen the pictures where they're literally, like an office stuck to an MRI machine.
Ron Otterbacher:
And they're never turned off.
Billy Perry:
Ever.
Bruce Scott:
Yeah.
Ron Otterbacher:
It's always on, the magnet's always going and they say it's, you know, several thousand times more than the earth's gravity pull. So, it's a very dangerous thing if you don't need to. You know, even with us working there, we don't do anything unless we have the MRI techs telling us, this is where you can go, this is where you can't go. You know, it's that simple.
Bill Godfrey:
A thousand times stronger, you know, I get fuzzy on the whole good, bad thing, but that sounds bad to me.
Billy Perry:
That sounds really bad.
Bill Godfrey:
It sounds really bad.
Billy Perry:
On a scale on one to 10-
Bruce Scott:
How about radioactivity, radioactive substances? They're present as well-
Bill Godfrey:
Oh yeah!
Bruce Scott:
In those type environments, right?
Bill Godfrey:
And you've got the labs with organisms and hazardous materials.
Bruce Scott:
So keeping, being aware of where you're at in the facility is not just limited to MRI, it's, there's a lot of bad things in a hospital that could get, make things worse.
Bill Godfrey:
Agreed. Completely agreed. So then this last question that we got, which I think from the context of it came from a trainer, possibly a hospital emergency manager that's involved in the training of staff, asked questions about, what are the things or the subjects that you can teach staff to help them prepare that work in the areas where you have the very vulnerable patients? And they specified ICU, OR, some of those where, you know, if you're in the OR in the middle of a case, running away is not-
Ron Otterbacher:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
It's suboptimal.
Billy Perry:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
Right? What are the things that the hospital could do to help prepare its staff that work in those areas that would arm them with being able to make better decisions? Rapid decisions.
Billy Perry:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
To act different ways. Any thoughts?
Ron Otterbacher:
I think the biggest thing is communication, so that they understand what's going on. I know that at one of the renowned situations that we had where I came from is they thought during that there was actually an active shooter in the hospital because you could hear the gunshots from the actual scenario down the street, and one of the victims from down the street had run in the hospital. He thought they were chasing and shooting at him. So they put out the active shooter event in the hospital and that affected the people in the OR and everything else because they thought there was actually someone coming in there for that.
And I think communication is the biggest thing. Let them know what's going on. And also, how prepared are you to lock down your, you know, lock down, lock out. I don't care what you call it. How prepared are you to keep everyone from coming in? And the more you can communicate that, we've nothing going on, you know, we see nothing. You know, so it kind of puts them at ease a little bit. Or in your plans, maybe you need to up your plan so that when you do a lockdown, you send someone to some of those vulnerable areas and have a little extra protection there.
Bill Godfrey:
Billy, that was gonna be my question to you. In your mind, does it become a priority for law enforcement in addition to trying to contact the threat, deal with the threat directly, to get security up to those vulnerable areas, the OR, the ICU, the pediatric unit, you know, whatever these vulnerable areas are in a particular hospital? In your mind, does it become a higher priority to get security presence there?
Billy Perry:
If we don't know where the person is?
Bill Godfrey:
Yes.
Billy Perry:
Yes. I definitely think so. If we don't know where the person is. If we have an idea where the person is, fix that and then everything else takes care of itself.
Bill Godfrey:
That's true.
Ron Otterbacher:
And I also think it depends on your resources. If you're a large agency, you've got the resources you can send maybe those people there. But if you're a smaller agency and that's all you have, then you gotta focus on the task at hand. And you know, again, figuring out what they can do to keep them as safe as they can. But it goes back to Travis. It depends.
Billy Perry:
Depends.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, so back to the original question, which is, is there anything that hospitals can do to help train or prepare staff specifically that work in these vulnerable areas? And I'm gonna say ICU and OR, because those are the ones that are very, very difficult to walk away from your patients, even for just a few minutes. Decision making, preparedness, otherwise. Bruce, you're smiling at me, you got something.
Bruce Scott:
Well, I'm just saying it's, the time to have that conversation is today, right?
Billy Perry:
Blue skies.
Bruce Scott:
Is what are we gonna do if? What are we gonna do if Godzilla attacks? What are we gonna do if, you know, we need to lock down this OR? What is our processes, what are our procedures that are gonna work best for us in the community that we live in and work in?
The second thing is, there are other things your staff can do later on. Like, stop the bleed kits, trauma kits? Can they potentially help the response as you know, law enforcement, public safety is moving through the building? You have a tremendous amount of experience. You may not be able to eliminate the threat, but you may be able to stop the dying on the back end by helping out, this something that's not in your normal scope of work, right? You know, being able to, you know, get 'em into a surgical suite's one thing, but you know, sitting in the hallway trying to stop the bleeding's a completely different set of problems, right?
So, I think you can continue to train your, I think you can continue to train your staff on the what if scenarios, have those conversations. Play devil's advocate, bring professionals into the room. Like if I'm in a hospital and we're having these conversations, I want law enforcement, public safety to be in the conversation so we can know what each other's, we can anticipate each other's actions at the time. Ron says, "Hey, we're a small agency, we're not gonna send a lot of resources in there. Do the best you can." Right? And that's one set of problems. Or you know, we come from a really large agency, we'll be able to, you know, give some contact teams there for security relatively quickly and then incorporate that into your plan.
Ron Otterbacher:
The other thing is these are considered security sensitive areas in the healthcare. So with being in security sensitive areas required that they have extra security measures in place. Like most of our security sensitive areas have access control where we electronically control the door. So it's not a open access moving back and forth. So that adds-
Billy Perry:
And they're monitored by camera and key, right?
Ron Otterbacher:
They've got enhanced cameras.
Billy Perry:
Right.
Ron Otterbacher:
But again, is anyone watching the cameras at the time? But the fact that there are those areas, maybe each or each healthcare facility needs to say, well if this is, we've identified it, these are vulnerable areas, maybe we need to enhance the security we can provide it on the front side rather than trying to catch up at the backside.
Bill Godfrey:
So, if I hear you guys right, I think the answer to this question is yes, there probably are some things that you can do to prepare your staff to make better decisions and take actions, but they're going to be highly dependent upon your specific facility, your specific security access controls, the floor plan.
Billy Perry:
And the specific incident.
Bill Godfrey:
And the specific, the specific incident as well. And also, the nature of the law enforcement agency that covers the area.
Billy Perry:
Correct.
Bill Godfrey:
All right, well that was it that I got for the questions that came in. Anything that you guys can think of that, I was trying to remember all the stuff we were talking about after we wrapped recording on that last podcast when we were talking about the healthcare. 'Cause I know when we got done, we said, you know, there's probably two, three hours that we could have gotten out of that. Any other big things that come to your mind?
Ron Otterbacher:
Biggest thing is communicate back and forth. Public safety needs to communicate with the hospital. The hospital needs to communicate with public safety before there's an incident.
Billy Perry:
Yeah.
Ron Otterbacher:
And do some training before there's an incident-
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Ron Otterbacher:
So that they have an understanding. I go back to my old adage that if you tell the fire department charge the line, what's gonna happen? Water's flowing down range. If you tell law enforcement charge the line, we're moving people out from a protest situation. If you tell the power company charge the line, we're all getting electrocuted. We all think it means the same, but it doesn't mean the same to everybody. So until you communicate back and forth and understand what each other's doing, then the chance of something going wrong is high.
Bill Godfrey:
Billy, any big picture thoughts on this one?
Billy Perry:
I agree and I think you've gotta decide as an organization what your priority is. And you do get what you pay for. And if you don't pay a lot and you never have to pay the bill, you saved a lot of money. If you don't pay a lot and you do have to pay the bill, it's steep.
Bruce Scott:
Right. Which is gonna lead into mine, right? Bring folks in that are professionals and let 'em do a risk assessment, right? People that actually know, you know, what the best security protocols would be in these particular areas. And then how much risk are you willing to buy down, right? So your administrators are going to say, that's too cost prohibitive. I'm gonna accept that risk. Or, now that it's been identified by, you know, professionals to say, you know what, we need to do better access control. Maybe we do need better cameras. Maybe we do additional security.
So again, I think you should lean on your professionals, take their advice, document it as a, you know, as a potential risk. And then, you know, it's not my decision, it's the leadership of that organization's decision. How much of that risk are you willing to accept? And that goes with every agency we ever all came from, right? We all know how things could be better or safer, but there's a certain amount of risk that's inherent.
Bill Godfrey:
And I think for me, I would say hospital leadership. Don't be afraid of this topic.
Bruce Scott:
Oh yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Pick up the phone, call your local city emergency manager, county emergency manager, your local police chief, your local fire chief. I assure you, they are just as worried about having a violent event occur in your facility as you are. It is a concern for fire and EMS. It is a concern for law enforcement. It is a concern for emergency management who wants your hospital to be functioning and working, and it is a concern for you as the leader of that facility. Don't stick your head in the sand on this one. Pick up the phone.
Billy Perry:
Agreed.
Bill Godfrey:
You've got a community of people around you that are all concerned about the same thing.
Bruce Scott:
And I'll tell you, from the fire department's side, what we're concerned about mainly, or a lot of was our radios weren't gonna. Once we got deep into that hospital, our 800 chunked radios, we knew they weren't gonna work. So we needed to practice what we were gonna do. The same way, I would love to be invited into your, you know, your facility and let's figure out a solution how we're gonna overcome this.
Bill Godfrey:
We're gonna leave it right there.
Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming back in to talk about this topic. I hope that these handful of listeners that sent us in some questions, we have hit them and answered them. Thank you to our producer Karla Torres. And until next time, stay safe.