SECURITY OFFICER - Full Time - Day Shift

KEY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Healthcare security officers are expected to respond to alarms, emergency requests, and use verbal de-escalation skills to resolve safety incidents. They are also expected to maintain confidentiality and discretion when handling private information, along with presenting strong customer service. At times, healthcare security guards will be required to effectively manage agitated or aggressive patients or visitors. At any moment, a patient could get upset and it’s important to know the techniques to properly deal with them. Other responsibilities include:

Patient/Visitor/Hospital Staff Duties

Assisting with visitor management is an important duty for a hospital security guard. This could include visitor screening or escorting visitors after hours. Other duties may include assisting in the transfer of high-risk patients or performing morgue release procedures.

Security is often the first person a visitor encounters when entering a facility, so it’s important to proactively approach and challenge (in a professional and courteous manner) unauthorized people. Other duties include:

• Responding efficiently and effectively to fire drills, external and internal disasters and/or drills, trauma alerts, emergency response codes, etc.
• Maintaining self-control in stressful situations,
• Managing verbally or physically aggressive situations without injury to patients and staff, using verbal intervention/de-escalation skills, remaining calm, exercising judgment, and avoiding unnecessary physical force and abusive language,
• Assisting clinical staff in the application of clinical restraints, including physical holds when necessary.

Customer Service/Screening

Officers may be expected to greet and screen visitors who enter the hospital reception/lobby areas. This includes explaining and enforcing hospital guidelines, directing visitors to appropriate locations, maintaining the hospital’s identification/visitor policies by issuing contractor/vendor/visitor passes, calling departments and verifying approval for visitation, and screening deliveries to patients and staff.

Patrol

Patrols are a regular part of healthcare security and include the following:

• Premise patrols on foot/vehicle,
• Thorough patrols of buildings, grounds, parking lots, and surrounding Medical Center parking lots,
• Inspection of areas for any security or safety hazard.
• Checking Medical Center entrance gates, doors, and windows to determine that they are secure, including maintaining the integrity of security-sensitive areas, e.g., ED, Neonatal, Behavioral Health, etc., and detecting unauthorized individuals and vehicles.
• Checking exterior lighting and access routes to emergency entrances, including ensuring the helipad, ambulance, and fire lanes are clear.
• Securing all Medical Center doors at the specified hour and unlocking all Medical Center doors at the prescribed hour.

Report Writing

As security professionals, it’s crucial to understand the importance of report writing and note-taking.  These two critical skills can have a significant impact on the success of operations, investigations, and the overall posture of the security program. As part of their daily duties, officers must write forensic incident reports that comply with rules of discovery, insurance investigations and other hospital requirements. They also must investigate all incidents, prepare incident reports on completion of the investigation, write accurate incident reports and documents investigatory steps and results, and use objective data and clear, concise language.