Costa Rica. The Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) began the implementation of its new electronic safety net, through a monitoring center that links different health facilities, with the aim of protecting the integrity of patients, officials and relatives who visit the institution in different parts of the national territory.
As explained by Mr. Rónald Lacayo Monge, administrative manager, the establishment of these new security measures was adopted, by virtue of the growth in the rates of violence.
The administrative authority of the institution explained that, at this time, 40 establishments are linked between hospitals, health area headquarters, workshops, production centers, laboratories ... in different parts of the country and the goal is to gradually link all establishments.
The electronic security system is composed of three main modules: video surveillance, access control and alarm systems, the latter with the capacity to integrate up to one million alarms.
The electronic surveillance network of the CCSS is complemented by other schemes that the institution has such as infrastructure, human resources and protocols for the attention of events.
Mr. Lacayo Monge explained that the institution has prioritized the implementation of these security systems in those places that the competent agencies indicate as most dangerous and violent, such as Limón, Guápiles, Desamparados and some points of San José.
The ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS of the CCSS are high-tech and can be observed from the Institutional Monitoring Center that is located in the central offices, in parallel with other local and regional monitoring centers.
The system allows in real time to observe what happens, for example, in the Tony Facio, Guápiles, Calderón Guardia, Centro de Atención Integral de Desamparados hospitals, among others.
According to engineer Gerardo León Solís, head of Research and Security of the CCSS, the implementation of these new security measures seek to protect the population and also have evidence to provide them in case it requires to verify or discard a fact.
Among the institutional provisions is that the new infrastructures are built with electronic security components and in this sense, it is coordinated with the Infrastructure Management so that the security item is expressed in the process of design and execution of the new works. In this sense, León Solís explained that works such as the William Allen hospital in Turrialba, Monsignor Sanabria and the health areas of San Isidro and Santa Bárbara de Heredia, for example, will have all the latest technology security devices.
The investment so far reaches one billion colones. The institutional purpose is to have complete coverage and complement the existing security schemes. The idea is to integrate 1,500 cameras in the medium term.
Source: CCSS.
