NEWINGTON, Conn.--Keeping track of who's entering and exiting the Connecticut Children's Medical Center is critical to overall security and "allows parents to feel safe leaving their child here," said Phillip LeClair, security manager of CCMC. The hospital's visitor management system, manufactured by EasyLobby, allows security officials to track who is in the building at any given time and ensures visitors are only allowed access to certain areas of the hospital.

CCMC first integrated the EasyLobby system in 2005, but LeClair said the system is continually being upgraded. "It's always a work in progress as new features become available," he said. For example, CCMC is evaluating a feature that checks a visitor's name against the national sex offender registry, but LeClair said the hospital has reservations about what the hospital should do once the information is received. "We're being cautious from a legal and administrative standpoint. Do we limit visitation of that particular individual or allow them to enter with an escort? We're struggling with how to deal with that situation. We know of other hospitals that utilize that particular feature, but we're not yet prepared to move forward with it."

LeClair said the installation of the system was fairly straightforward. The system is integrated onto the hospital network and is continually updated with patient data to "verify that folks presenting themselves to see a particular patient, that that patient is indeed registered here, so there can't be false entries," he said.

He also said the system is user friendly, so training staff was relatively easy. "We didn't have to send our whole security staff to learn how to use it," he said.

Overall, LeClair said the technology gives a greater sense of security to the facility. "It's a soft way of presenting security, in the sense that there's not an officer at every door."