Hospital Security and Force Protection: A Guide to Ensuring Patient and Employee Safety

The purpose of this study was to develop a tool to assess security measures in hospitals and provide an informational tool that would help hospitals address any shortcomings from the security assessment to deter and mitigate the effects of terrorist attacks. This study employed a qualitative approach performed using narrative meta-analysis. This was accomplished by creating a data collection sheet used to highlight salient techniques and categorize each study into three groups hospital security, terrorism mitigation, and emergency management. The three categories of literature were used to develop the security assessment checklist, the terrorism mitigation matrix, and provide a summary of emergency management techniques. The security assessment checklist provides hospitals a tool to find vulnerabilities within their security program. Consequently, the findings are then used to mitigate any shortcomings. The terrorism mitigation matrix was created to provide administrators options for implementing terrorism and crime prevention techniques. The implementation of these tools will help hospitals prevent terrorist attacks and crime on campus.