Ipad theft-4 WC Blog 332
Bug Tag-3
i-pads In Neonatal Care Units Keep Moms In Touch With Their Babies; Keep Those i-pads Secure With Bug Tags
Having your baby in a neonatal intensive care unit is stressful and scary. I know this because 21 years ago my wife and I went through the experience and not with just one baby, but with our twins who were born prematurely. I remember those days like they were yesterday. For the first week my wife was in her hospital room recovering, our twins were in the NICU and we could only briefly go in and see them in their incubators and then we would have to go back in the hall and my wife had to eventually get back to her bed. I was torn between visiting my wife and our infants, going back and forth between the two rooms. After the first week I had to return to work. My wife was released from the hospital but could not drive so before and after work I would drive us up and we would spend every available minute at the hospital visiting. Some days my wife would stay at the hospital while I worked then I would pick her up late at night and return home. This went on for approximately five weeks until our babies were eventually healthy enough to take home. It was difficult to not be with our little ones. We knew they were getting great care, but the unknowns and the separation weighed heavily on us. Today, hospitals are using i-pads in NICU units to help connect mothers and fathers to their newborns. I would have loved to have this technology available to us twenty-one years ago. It would have been a relief for me to be able to peek in on my children while I was at work or my wife could have checked in on them from her hospital room or from home until we could get to the hospital to visit. While this technology is great for hospitals, knowing criminals don’t concern themselves with who might be impacted by their crimes, I have to wonder what hospitals are doing to prevent i-pad theft in these neonatal care units.
Medical i-pad theft is a real concern not only because of the value of the i-pads but also many of these mobile devices carry patient information. Patient information is protected under HIPPA laws and when a data breach takes place the agency that experienced the breach is required to report it to the Department of Health and Human Services. The best method to protect against i-pad theft is to keep a device from leaving the building in the first place. An Alpha Bug Tag used with electronic article surveillance (EAS) pedestals provides protection against attempted theft by activating a pedestal alarm if a mobile device is carried into the pedestal detection range. The alarm alerts staff someone is trying to take an i-pad out of the building and they can recover it. The Bug Tag is attached directly to the mobile unit and has tamper protections that create an alarm if there is an attempt to forcibly remove the tag, again giving employees an opportunity to respond and prevent a theft.
While one hospital that uses video chat for parents with an infant in the NICU states in an article that they erase the memory after each chat, it does imply that there is stored data on their i-pads. I would imagine that they do a pretty good job of erasing data, but I also know that with any human element there is a chance of error. NICU’s can get hectic, I’ve been there and observed it. In the course of dealing with critical situations cleaning a mobile device of information is going to be relatively low on the priority list. That makes it all the more important to take steps to prevent i-pad theft.
Health care providers are doing a wonderful service for parents that have a baby in the NICU by providing video viewing with mobile devices. Making sure that the devices are secure and preventing HIPPA violations can be done easily by using Alpha’s Bug Tag and installing EAS towers at the doors.
Get more information on Bug Tags, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
Having your baby in a neonatal intensive care unit is stressful and scary. I know this because 21 years ago my wife and I went through the experience and not with just one baby, but with our twins who were born prematurely. I remember those days like they were yesterday. For the first week my wife was in her hospital room recovering, our twins were in the NICU and we could only briefly go in and see them in their incubators and then we would have to go back in the hall and my wife had to eventually get back to her bed. I was torn between visiting my wife and our infants, going back and forth between the two rooms. After the first week I had to return to work. My wife was released from the hospital but could not drive so before and after work I would drive us up and we would spend every available minute at the hospital visiting. Some days my wife would stay at the hospital while I worked then I would pick her up late at night and return home. This went on for approximately five weeks until our babies were eventually healthy enough to take home. It was difficult to not be with our little ones. We knew they were getting great care, but the unknowns and the separation weighed heavily on us. Today, hospitals are using i-pads in NICU units to help connect mothers and fathers to their newborns. I would have loved to have this technology available to us twenty-one years ago. It would have been a relief for me to be able to peek in on my children while I was at work or my wife could have checked in on them from her hospital room or from home until we could get to the hospital to visit. While this technology is great for hospitals, knowing criminals don’t concern themselves with who might be impacted by their crimes, I have to wonder what hospitals are doing to prevent i-pad theft in these neonatal care units.
Medical i-pad theft is a real concern not only because of the value of the i-pads but also many of these mobile devices carry patient information. Patient information is protected under HIPPA laws and when a data breach takes place the agency that experienced the breach is required to report it to the Department of Health and Human Services. The best method to protect against i-pad theft is to keep a device from leaving the building in the first place. An Alpha Bug Tag used with electronic article surveillance (EAS) pedestals provides protection against attempted theft by activating a pedestal alarm if a mobile device is carried into the pedestal detection range. The alarm alerts staff that someone is trying to take an i-pad out of the building and they can recover it. The Bug Tag is attached directly to the mobile unit and has tamper protections that create an alarm if there is an attempt to forcibly remove the tag, again giving employees an opportunity to respond and prevent a theft.
While one hospital that uses video chat for parents with an infant in the NICU states in an article that they erase the memory after each chat, it does imply that there is stored data on their i-pads. I would imagine that they do a pretty good job of erasing data, but I also know that with any human element there is a chance of error. NICU’s can get hectic, I’ve been there and observed it. In the course of dealing with critical situations cleaning a mobile device of information is going to be relatively low on the priority list. That makes it all the more important to take steps to prevent i-pad theft.
Health care providers are doing a wonderful service for parents that have a baby in the NICU by providing video viewing with mobile devices. Making sure that the devices are secure and preventing HIPPA violations can be done easily by using Alpha’s Bug Tag and installing EAS towers at the doors.
Get more information on Bug Tags, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
