With a reputation as one of the most advanced pediatric healthcare providers in the United States, Dayton Children’s Hospital has always prioritized the safety and well-being of its patients, families, and staff. To support that mission, the hospital’s Public Safety Department continuously evolves its technology infrastructure. Those efforts include the use of modern surveillance solutions to enhance visibility, efficiency, and response across its facilities.

“Everyone who walks through our doors, parks in our lots, or steps onto our property should feel safe and secure,” said Mark Moore, Chief Security Officer at Dayton Children’s Hospital. “We’re not perfect, but we strive to get better every day.”

Moore and his team saw their mission challenged by the broader trend of rising workplace violence in healthcare settings nationwide. This problem has accelerated in facilities like Dayton Children’s Hospital that offer behavioral and mental health services, and it’s been exacerbated by societal stresses in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve had many more workplace violence incidents since the pandemic,” Moore said. “That has become a huge focus, not only for us at Dayton Children’s Hospital, but for healthcare security departments around the world.”

Expanding Coverage Amid Growing Demands
It was clear that the hospital’s escalating security needs required a more advanced and efficient surveillance solution. The public safety team conducted a thorough evaluation, searching for newer cameras with updated features to replace discontinued legacy models. Dayton Children’s Hospital ultimately landed on Hanwha Vision’s PNM-9000QB modular 2MP four-channel remote head camera. Currently, about 100 cameras are installed throughout the facility.

The new camera upgrade delivers higher image quality and broader coverage, but the benefits have also extended far beyond technical performance.

“We’ve been able to save about a quarter of a million dollars over the last six years”

– Mark Moore, Chief Security Officer at Dayton Children’s Hospital

Flexible Installation, Powerful Results
The modular, decentralized multi-sensor four-lens design of the new cameras delivers up to four views from a single IP address and license. Dayton staff can use a single camera unit to achieve the same coverage of four separate cameras. The team can monitor more angles over a wider area from a single cable, easily viewing multiple patient rooms or entire hallway intersections that otherwise would have required several cameras. For example, one single Hanwha multi-lens camera is effectively covering three separate patient rooms plus a hallway in the hospital’s NICU.

Getting the job done with fewer cameras means less infrastructure, directly lowering switch and cabling costs by saving on network ports, cabling, and VMS software licenses. This “doing more with less” installation approach has resulted in substantial cost savings, which Dayton Children’s Hospital estimates to total more than $269,000 between 2019 and 2025.

“We’ve been able to save about a quarter of a million dollars over the last six years,” said Moore. “That’s significant for any hospital, but for a small regional children’s hospital, that’s massive. Plus, it means we have that money to spend on other resources that help keep our patients, families, and staff safer.”

Steve Knight, the hospital’s Technical Sergeant, detailed the benefits in terms of the hospital’s Pyxis project. Replacing one existing camera with a multi-lens unit provided the necessary coverage for a medication dispensing machine without the need for new, expensive cable installations, saving an estimated $1,500 in cabling for that location.

The camera’s wide dynamic range capability helps the team solve visibility problems their previous system could not address. They can deploy the Hanwha cameras in challenging conditions, for example, handling bright light from windows, and still benefit from enhanced clarity and image quality.

The new camera system has improved critical hospital operations, such as drug diversion prevention and investigation, by providing clear video evidence for rapid investigations and ensuring regulatory compliance.

“Now we can investigate so much more quickly,” Knight said. “Often, we have a resolution before the hospital has a chance to report an incident. That’s a major advantage for the hospital that also protects us from civil liability and regulatory issues. We can easily go back and see forensically what happened, but there are also times when it’s helped us prevent incidents from happening.”

The infrastructure savings gained by Dayton Children’s Hospital with its new Hanwha Vision camera system will help “future proof” the facility, making system expansion a more cost-effective exercise and laying the foundation for long-term growth. The hospital plans to move beyond reactive video review, eventually upgrading to Hanwha Vision’s PNM-C2000QB next-generation four-sensor model to take advantage of the cameras’ advanced AI analytics.

“Our goal was better image quality, wider coverage, and reduced costs,” said Moore. “Hanwha Vision cameras delivered all three: quality went up, and total costs went down.”