COMING IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF CANADIAN SECURITY:

Coming up in the April issue of Canadian Security

Cover story: The Eyes and Ears of Hospital Row
Todd Milne, Corporate Security Manager University Health Network
When Todd Milne became head of corporate security at Princess Margaret Hospital he had 16 black and white cameras, one VCR and seven tapes. Ten years later he runs a highly sophisticated and centralized network of 300 cameras, 18 digital recorders and access control systems across three major health care facilities on Toronto's ''hospital row''.

Milne is responsible for security across the University Health Network — a group of three hospitals consisting of Princess Margaret, Toronto Western and Toronto General Hospitals. He’s also currently pitching in to assist security at Women's College Hospital.

The UHN employs more than 12,000 people, is a premier research facility and serves Canada's largest urban core. Last year, UHN security was dispatched to 32,078 calls.

Milne talks about how he gets vendors to work together and how he views the role of security in a health care setting.

Background checks
Looking into a new hire's education and work history has become commonplace, but increasingly, government and other organizations that fall into the category of critical infrastructure are beginning to take a harder line with employee background checks. And background checks don’t just happen at the hiring stage anymore.

Pandemic planning
Many organizations have started to plan or have completed plans for responding to a pandemic event. Security departments/organizations need to ensure that they preparing as well and involved with their organization's planning process.

Areas that need to be addressed include facility information, staffing, equipment, training, access/egress, communications and recovery.

Ken Close, a specialist in Emergency Preparedness with Peel Region Health examines issues of pandemic planning specific to security departments.