More grip on safety for Nij Smellinghe

At the Nij Smellinghe hospital in Drachten, access is carefully considered. When the certificate of the mechanical locking system expired, the hospital decided to switch to a completely keyless system for security reasons. Niels Broekema, facilities team leader at Nij Smellinghe, explains that this will be done in phases. "In the hospital, rebuilding and renovation are a continuous process."

In the original situation, the security department was responsible for issuing, registering and collecting mechanical keys. Managing these is a difficult task, Niels Broekema knows. "The hospital has 1,400 to 1,500 employees with different duty hours. Moreover, they work in different departments, within which further different access rights apply. It is obvious that this creates problems and that is a risk for a hospital, especially when it comes to master keys." The expiration of the certificate of the mechanical locking system was the deciding factor for the hospital to change. As a result, the keys were no longer unique and protected, says Henk Bouwman, employee technical service bureau. "To protect the wards, the mechanical cylinders had to be replaced. Also remember that each mechanical key was an investment of about 24 euros. In our opinion, we had to be able to do that better." Through Klunder in Drachten, a specialist in door and access technology, SALTO Systems' access control system was suggested and tested on a trio of doors. That went to Bouwman's satisfaction. "Eventually, together with Johnny van der Veen of the company Klunder and Foppe Doetjes of Van Manen and Zwart Architects in Drachten, I advised the construction parties to apply the SALTO system. We decided that from now on all new construction and remodeling projects should be directly equipped with SALTO."

Ambitious project
When patients and visitors enter the Polyclinic building, they enter a beautiful hall with lots of natural light. It is Nij Smellinghe's most recent new building. An ambitious project, according to Niels Broekema. "It was built in one year, but the preparations started long in advance." The outpatient clinic was commissioned in June last year and is the first building section to be fully equipped with SALTO's access control. mThe access control consists of a combination of offline components and a number of strategically placed online 'upgrade points' through wall readers. In the building, mostly XS4 electronic fittings have been used, but also electronic GEO cylinders, glass door fittings and locker locks on medicine cabinets and medicine carts. Henk Bouwman adds that all the hardware and cylinders are finished with BioCote. BioCote ensures that 99.9% of all microbes on the surface are broken down. "We want to keep hygiene in the hospital as good as possible, and often door handles are precisely places where bacteria originating from hands are easily passed on," he says. The cleaning department is also very pleased with the use of BioCote. The fittings are always stain-free."

Flexible and manageable
Meanwhile, Nij Smellinghe has gained a much better grip on security. Instead of mechanical keys, DESfire passes are now used. The hospital deliberately chose this protocol because of the higher security compared to Mifare. Nowadays, access rights can be adjusted or passes blocked at the push of a button. Among other things, the system now provides an overview of the users and their access rights. A printout of this can easily be made, says Niels Broekema. "We often use this to check whether employees still have access to the right doors. But also to see who has gone in where. The pharmacy, for example, is a department for which this check is very important. It is a complicated department because employees are allowed in one area but not another at certain times. So the flexibility of making adjustments to access rights is a big advantage."

An ongoing process
The hospital still has many plans for the future. Every year Nij Smellinghe makes an investment budget that includes a piece of access control. That determines that year's planning. "The beginning of a key-free hospital has now been made. Over three hundred doors are equipped with SALTO access control, but there is much more potential. The intention is that in the future the hospital will move completely to the SALTO access control system."

Voor more information www.saltosystems.nl or www.saltosystems.be

Text: Salto Systems
Photos: Elice van Es