Healthcare Security Alert insert: Surviving security budget cuts in a recession

Surviving security budget cuts in a recession

How to thrive under pressure to cut

 As hospitals across the country are suffering from the recession, budget cuts have become widespread in many hospital departments, and security departments are no exception. Security is important, but it doesn’t generate revenue, making it more critical than ever for security department managers and directors to find ways to survive—and even thrive—while carrying the weight of economic hardship.

“You have to constantly look for opportunities, you have to be innovative as hell, and you’ve just got to really market yourselves,” says Anthony N. Potter, CHE, ¬CHPA-F, CPP, FAAFS, market director of public safety at Novant Health in Winston-Salem, NC. Potter is a proponent of ensuring that the security department works with and for the hospital, understands the need to stay within budget, and helps contribute to efficiency and profitability. Although some might think of security as merely something necessary to achieve accreditation, Potter says the security department should work to counteract that image.

“You have to be proactive in everything you do,” he says. “We’re a proactive discipline—that’s what we’re all about. Our job is to keep things from happening.” Take that proactive attitude to position yourself positively in your hospital, he says, and you might find your department afloat in times of raging financial waters.