At a large hospital in Hartford, Conn., a security guard perched on a stool at his post near the maternity wing. At fifty years of age, Officer Thompson was well past his football-playing days, but, at six feet tall and over two hundred pounds, he still looked like he could handle any intruder.

As a vendor exited the double doors, another man approached from the other direction. The burly guard held up his hand to the newcomer, who stopped and looked at the officer.

“The visitor badge you are wearing is no good,” Mr. Thompson announced. “You have to go to the front desk and get a new one.”

The visitor, surprised, asked, “What’s wrong with the badge I’m wearing?”

Officer Thompson stood up, stepped around his podium, and pointed at the man’s shirt. “Your badge says “VOID,” he explained. Then, leaning closer for a better look, he added, “and the date is NOT today.” He straightened, widened his stance, and crossed his beefy arms across his chest.

The visitor, exposed by his lapsed badge, slowly turned around and walked toward the main entrance.

A bystander waited a moment before drawing closer to the guard’s station. “That’s pretty cool how you knew that guy wasn’t wearing proper identification.”

“Yup,” Officer Thompson agreed. “These badges definitely work.”

The visitor who Officer Thompson refused to let through was wearing a TAB-Expiring Visitor Pass from Visitor Pass Solutions. The man may have been issued the badge as recently as the day before. But, because it was engineered to change color overnight, the badge showed a pink “VOID” image that could be seen from a distance.

When visitors sign in to a facility that uses TAB-Expiring Visitor Passes, whether by signing into a log book by hand or being registered by computer software, they are issued identification in the form of a label that is unlike any other.

These Visitor Passes “expire” over time to discourage re-use and to prevent re-entry. Before issuing the badge, a receptionist or security guard folds the attached tab behind the label to activate the color-changing process. Once the badge is activated, the process cannot be reversed, and the badge starts to turn color within six to eight hours, completing the change by the following day.

 

 

Typically, most people don’t try to re-use a badge that has visibly expired. This removes the need for staff members at the front desk from having to retrieve badges as visitors depart.

Still, hospital personnel are trained to recognize such badges as not having been given out that day. How they respond to such a sighting depends on the hospital’s security protocols. In this case, the security guard had authority to challenge the visitor and deny entry.

At another facility in Hartford, Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, the Director of Security implemented a manual Visitor Pass sign-in system for certain areas of the campus using these same TAB-Expiring badges, before switching to the software version, “eVisitorPass.”

“We had experienced an increase in thefts over the prior six to eight months,” Jack Mayoros recalled. “By issuing the visitor pass – getting an I.D. and a name on the person – we cut our thefts to zero in that building. This new I.D. system meets our needs as well as our budget.”

How does your staff tell the difference between a visitor who has authorization and one who does not? Click here for more information about TAB-Expiring Visitor Passes, or to download the free whitepaper, “Your Guide to Choosing a Visitor Management System.”

 

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