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Etiquette tip for the day: If someone drives five hours to meet with you, please refrain from falling asleep while they are talking.

On Friday I attended The International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety's 2008 Security Training Conference in Lewiston, Maine. I love going to these local events and getting some quality face time with some of the security professionals in the region. It's so much better than meeting people at big trade shows - neither of you are nearly as overwhelmed by people or products.

I'll admit I was surprised by the turnout. I'm guesstimating there were about 60- to 70-people in attendance and a good mix of people ranging from security officers (calling them "guards" is apparently a huge faux pas these days) to security director's of Boston's larger and smaller hospitals.

There were three primary educational sessions over the course of the day-long conference. The first session presented by Dora Mills, director of Maine Center for Disease Control, was about the importance of security personnel being prepared to deal with a pandemic flu outbreak. The primary message was that security leaders need to have an emergency plan in place (and know it!). What will your department do when there is an outbreak and sick people start overwhelming hospital facilities? What is your procedure for turning away sick people in an emergency? How are you going to deal with an understaffed department when security personnel start getting sick? All questions worth asking and her certainty of a pandemic flu outbreak certainly made me start washing my hands obsessively.

The second session was about what to do in the case of an active shooter in a hospital setting. I thought it was interesting to hear what police have learned from Columbine and how they've changed their tactics to dealing with an active shooter. They call it "move to contact" which basically means they'll do anything and everything necessary to stop the shooter. Don't wait for backup, don't wait for the SWAT team to show up, don't stop to help the injured, find the shooter and stop him/her. If the shooter barricades him or herself in, that's fine. The shooting has stopped and the police have time to evaluate the situation. The message to security and hospital administration was the need to provide police officers with clear and concise information about location and the current situation, since police are often entering these situations completely blind. (For the full story search "In wake of security officer shooting, healthcare professionals learn about active shooter" at Security Director News).

The last session was about bomb detection and response. I learned you can make a bomb out of just about anything. The part that scared me the most was discussion about the power and freedom of lithium batteries and the reality that someone can drop a pipe bomb in a building under construction and it won't go off for 10 years. Yikes. That should certainly motivate the installation of analytic cameras on construction sites to watch for that kind of event.

All of this discussion about hospital security came in the wake of the Sept. 7 fatal shooting of a security officer at Mercy Hospital in Portland, Maine (and, consequentially just a few blocks from my apartment, which freaks me out). Several officers and administrators from Mercy were in attendance and you could tell the tragedy was still very fresh. It was certainly a reminder of just how important these discussions are.

Another way to get the word out

Last week, a bunch of crazy students at Samuel Gaines Academy were charged with misdemeanors because one 13-year-old brought a gun to school and the others helped hide it. This article says screening kids is not the answer.

Here's the paragraph that kills me:

The best weapon against guns on campus are students willing to tell officials when an armed classmate is in their midst, officials said."We want all the kids to talk to us, even if it's a slight concern," said Hank Salzler, assistant superintendent of Martin County schools. "Tell us what you hear, and let us act on it."

Well, sure it is but what is the reality that is going to happen. Kids are all of a sudden going to turn their back on their friends and peer pressure?? I beg to differ.

Morris (Dave Morris director of security at Port Lucie school district) said running several thousand students through a bank of metal detectors with trained personnel to isolate the source of every alarm would take hours out of every school day: Imagine, he said, loading 2,600 students on 10 airliners at Palm Beach International Airport for a field trip.

"What kind of delays do you think that would create?" Morris said. "I don't know of any school district in the state of Florida that makes kids walk through metal detectors every day."

I agree that metal detectors may not be the answer in this case. I wish this reporter would have asked what other technologies the school is using; what about procedures to watch out for guns on campus? Why are metal detectors the answer and the sole focus on this article? Are there no other solutions in his mind? Ask some questions and do some research, please.

If I was a parent in this district, this wouldn't help me sleep soundly at night.