ATLANTA— Having faced many security, including on-site domestic violence, disputes among patients, gang-related activities, break-ins and theft, Atlanta-based Southside Medical Center (SMC) has deployed the Avigilon High Definition (HD) Surveillance System to boost patient and staff safety.
SMC, Georgia’s oldest and largest federally qualified health center, selected the Avigilon HD Surveillance System because of its superior image clarity to capture the evidence required to identify, confirm, and convict.
“We are in a new era,” said SMC CEO Dr. David M. Williams. “We are moving forward with our plans to have the nation’s first federally qualified health center of excellence and having state-of-the-art technology will help us achieve our goal in an efficient and reliable manner.”
SMC installed Avigilon control center network video management software (NVMS) with HD stream management on three Avigilon HD network video recorders. One Avigilon 16 megapixel camera, in addition to several Avigilon 11 and five megapixel cameras, were installed on the exterior of the facility for perimeter monitoring. Nine Avigilon analog video encoders were used to integrate the existing 28 analog cameras into the new Avigilon HD surveillance system, creating a hybrid system that facilitates the migration from analog to digital as budget allows.
“Our previous analog-based surveillance system produced grainy and monochrome images, and could not zoom effectively to capture the image detail needed for positive identification,” explained SMC Director of Corporate Affairs Barlon Lundgren. “With the Avigilon HD surveillance system, we can retrieve exact image details twice as fast as we could with our previous system leading to faster, more cost-effective, and successful investigations.”
Leveraging the Avigilon control center NVMS, SMC can easily export footage to enable law enforcement officials to review it without having to install Avigilon control center software on their own system. Requiring less additional equipment than other systems, the Avigilon HD surveillance system was easily integrated with the medical center’s existing infrastructure, resulting in lower installation costs. Further cost savings were realized by being able to achieve greater coverage with fewer Avigilon megapixel cameras. The management team has also saved operational costs by leveraging the Avigilon HD surveillance system to monitor and resolve conflicts between patients and staff.
“Using Avigilon control center NVMS with high definition stream management, SMC can preserve their investment in existing analog cameras and add megapixel cameras as budget allows to dramatically improve the performance of the entire video surveillance network,” said Avigilon Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing Dave Tynan. “Now, the medical center can cost-effectively migrate from analog to digital and dramatically improve the forensic value of the video for faster and more successful investigations.”
Avigilon June 10, 2010 press release
