Our product consultants are good listeners.

And often they hear hospital administrators saying they can’t afford the kind of access control they know they need to keep their patients, visitors, and staff members safe.

Well, after a bit of probing by our attentive representatives, these busy, cost-conscious security directors, facilities managers, and other professionals decide they can achieve an acceptable level of security after all. All they have to do is prioritize when and where their I.D. badges are used — and for whom.

They discover three things:

1. They don’t have to badge everybody.
   They can start by badging just their vendors and contractors, instead of every single visitor.
2. They don’t have to badge everywhere.
   They recognize the importance of securing the floors that are most at-risk, like maternity.
3. They don’t have to badge every minute.
   They can wait until regular visiting hours are over and traffic is lighter, but oftentimes more suspect.

The bottom line, according to Edward McDonald of the Cleveland Clinic’s Euclid Hospital, is “(Data Management’s) self-expiring badge is excellent to help us identify authorized guests in the hospital.”

It’s just a matter of the individual facility deciding how much or how little it can afford to do.

   
Security tab folds back to activate the time-expiring process, so the badge changes color overnight to prevent reuse.  

Time-expiring visitor badges change color to prevent reuse and to eliminate the need for employees to collect them from visitors who have left a facility.   

But since their invention almost 30 years ago, these expiring badges have always required multiple pieces to activate the color-changing process. This is a problem because the person issuing the badge doesn’t always assemble all the pieces properly (too little time or training). As a result, sometimes a visitor’s badge is activated, and sometimes it’s not.    

At last there’s an expiring visitor badge, for electronic as well as manual visitor management systems, that takes the guesswork out of activating it: the Direct Thermal TAB-Expiring Visitor Pass, from Data Management Inc.’s line of “Visitor Pass Solutions” security products.    

“It’s called ‘TAB-Expiring’ because it has a tab extending from one end of the self-adhesive label,” says Brian Gallagher, DMI’s president. “Instead of multiple parts, all of the expiration components are self-contained into one piece, making activation virtually foolproof.”    

Here’s how it works. After the visitor’s information is printed (or written) onto the badge, it is peeled from its liner, and the tab is folded behind the badge to activate the color-changing chemistry. Overnight, a “VOID” image appears on the badge, dissuading departed visitors from trying to reuse their badge another day without authorization. Once activated, the tamperproof expiring process cannot be reversed, ensuring that every visitor badge will change color to void itself.    

“We actually first introduced the TAB-Expiring Visitor Pass, for our manual sign-in book, in 2008,” says Mr. Gallagher. “Its popularity led us to develop this new version for electronic visitor management systems. Now employees in a facility can know for sure which visitors have permission to be there and which don’t, regardless of how they sign them in. And if a tab-expiring badge hasn’t been properly activated, it’s easy to tell, because the tab is clearly visible if it hasn’t been folded behind the label.”    

The Direct Thermal TAB-Expiring Visitor Pass is available in packs of 1,000 badges (four rolls of 250). For manual visitor management, there’s the self-duplicating TAB-Expiring Visitor Pass Registry Book, which creates an ID badge and a log in one easy step.

How do you offer customers lots of choices — AND make it easy for them to choose?

That was the challenge facing Data Management Inc. Its Visitor Pass Solutions product line consists of easy-to-implement and easy-to-use visitor badges and sign-in books for facilities to manage their visitors effectively and affordably. To make sure customers get just the right solution, DMI offers a wide range of formats, sizes, styles, and other options, such as custom-printing an organization’s logo. This all adds up to hundreds of possible product combinations.

So how does DMI meet its customers’ exact needs without overwhelming them with the possibilities? Here are two important ways.

The first has been a tradition since DMI’s founding almost 50 years ago. “Customer service is clearly a priority at Data Management,” says John Mracek, Director of Risk Management at Univita Health in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. “Their staff were helpful, courteous, and attentive without ever being pushy.”

The second way DMI helps its customers keep their options straight is with the marketing materials it makes available to them. The latest piece is a 28-page, 8½” x 11″ full-line catalog, which does a good job of showing the breadth of the line in one cohesive package, says DMI President Brian Gallagher. “That’s important, because our Visitor Pass product line has been growing so quickly and offers a combination of security features not easily found elsewhere. Our sales staff is excited to be able to share this catalog with their customers.” 

The new Visitor Pass Solutions catalog is available in both a print edition (beautifully lithographed on glossy paper) and online in a digital edition. Either edition will help facilities looking to improve how they keep track of visitors, whether it’s manually or electronically, to find a solution that’s right for them.

In 2009 the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) announced it was launching a national campaign to help parents be more actively involved in their children’s health care at the doctor’s office, in the hospital, or at home. The announcement said the new education campaign is part of The Joint Commission’s award-winning Speak Up™ program.

“The best way to make sure that your child receives the care that he or she needs is by being an active member of the health care team,” said Mark R. Chassin, M.D., president of The Joint Commission. “Through the Speak Up program, The Joint Commission is helping parents by giving them the tools they need to ask the right questions and take action before, during and after their child’s care.”

One way some hospitals encourage parents’ involvement is by giving them special visitor badges to wear that identify them as a parent of a patient. This helps acknowledge parents as a vital part of their child’s care team and sets them apart, for the benefit of staff, from other visitors.

Data Management Inc.’s self-duplicating Visitor Passes can be printed with “PARENT” instead of “VISITOR” for no extra charge, as well as with the name or logo of the hospital and any other information desired.

Helpful links:

‘Speak Up’ to Prevent Errors in Your Child’s Care (Joint Commission press release)

The Institute for Family-Centered Care provides leadership to advance the understanding and practice of patient- and family-centered care in hospitals and other health care settings.

Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rules, physician’s offices (and other “covered entities”) may use patient sign-in sheets in waiting rooms so long as the information disclosed is “appropriately limited.” See http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/index.html

For example, patients may be permitted to see other patient names on a sign-in sheet, but only if reasonable safeguards have been implemented, such as not displaying the medical problem for which the patient is seeing the physician.

Why take chances? Especially if a patient’s condition is implied by the nature of your specialty. For example, a woman signing in at an obstetrician’s office may not be ready to tell everybody she is pregnant.

You can guarantee HIPAA compliance in this area, regardless of how much private information your patients and visitors share when signing in, with two privacy-reinforcing products from Data Management, Inc.

The Patient Privacy Sign-In System — This two-part “label/form” keeps patient information confidential while creating an automatic duplicate log of all patient sign-in activity. It makes it easy to update patient charts, verify billing, and manage patient volume and flow. See http://www.meditape.com/products_privacy.asp.

The Visitor Pass Registry Book creates both a temporary visitor badge and a permanent, confidential visitor log in one step. When visitors sign in, they fill out their I.D. badge, a self-adhesive label. This action automatically transfers their information onto a duplicate record sheet underneath. See http://www.visitorpasssolutions.com/

Data Management Inc., manufacturers of Visitor Pass Solutions, a line of innovative I.D. badges for manual and electronic visitor management, has discovered it is often mistaken for another maker of identification products, Brady Corporation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, according to DMI CEO Dan Hincks. 

“There are probably two reasons this confusion exists,” Hincks said. “First, both companies offer products that provide temporary identification for visitors. Second, both companies have partnered with the man who invented time-expiring visitor badges, David J. Haas, Ph.D.”

Dr. Haas, who works with Data Management on a consulting basis, founded Temtec Inc. in 1981 and marketed his TEMPbadge product line for more than 20 years before selling his company to Brady in 2002. Years later, he licensed an improved expiring badge idea to Data Management, which had been successfully marketing its own self-duplicating Visitor Pass Registry Book. In 2008 the patented TAB-Expiring Visitor Pass was born. Like other Haas inventions, it changes color overnight to prevent reuse.

However, unlike any other time-expiring badge in the world, the TAB-Expiring Visitor Pass features a unique one-piece activation process that saves time and effort. “Today, the TAB-Expiring Visitor Pass has replaced the original ‘old-fashioned’ two-part construction,” Hincks says. “There are fewer ‘moving parts,’ and activation is simple and quick. It’s been well received by our distributors and their security manager customers.”

Dan Spinelli of Marlane Graphics Inc. sold 300 fully customized books to a large chain of early childhood development facilities. “Never, in my 25 years in the printing business,” he said, “have I seen a job produced with the quality and speed of this one.”

For information on becoming a distributor of Visitor Pass Solutions, visit www.DMIpartner.com or contact Mart Smith, VP-Sales, at 800-243-1969, ext. 306, or at msmith@datamanage.com. International dealers can visit www.DataManage.us or contact Noel Turner, International Director of Sales, at 800-243-1969 ext. 370 (U.S. and Canada), +1-860-677-8586 (International), or at nturner@datamanage.com.

Time-expiring Visitor Passes change color overnight to prevent reuse.

Take this short quiz to see how well visitors are managed at your place. 

1. If employees are required to wear I.D. badges, does that mean everyone who doesn’t is an authorized visitor? 

2. If you require visitors to wear name tags, how do you know they didn’t get them at an office supply store? (“Hello, my name is …”) 

3. If you have your visitor badges specially printed (to discourage forgery), how do you know that visitor checked in at the front desk today? (The person could be using a discarded badge found outside or could have followed an employee into the building through another entrance and bypassed the main office.) 

All of these concerns are easily, effectively, and affordably addressed with Data Management, Inc.’s Visitor Pass Registry Book. 

“Visitor Pass ensures at a glance which visitors are supposed to be here,” says Deidre Reidy, a facilities manager in Windsor, Connecticut. “We wanted passes that would be really specific for us, and Data Management was very easy to work with.” 

Christopher Scott, an assistant security director in Torrance, California, agrees. “Our consultant listened to my needs, which ended in a personally catered and tailored product.” 

This doesn’t mean you have to wait a long time to get just what you want. Most custom-printed Visitor Pass Registry Books ship within two business days. Books are also available with special “expiring” badges that change color overnight to prevent reuse (and unauthorized re-entry). 

“For identifying authorized guests in our hospital,” says Edward McDonald, a safety and security services manager in Euclid, Ohio, “The self-expiring badge is excellent.”

Signing in creates a visitor badge and a visitor log in one easy step.

“The carbon copy is incredible.”

So says Trish Wilson, an office manager at the Pinewood Christian Academy in Middleburg, Florida, which uses the Visitor Pass Registry Book from Data Management, Inc.

“It helps us keep track of who is in the building, when, and why,” she says.

What really makes this system incredible is how it creates both a temporary visitor badge and a permanent, confidential visitor log in one step. (“Self-duplicating” is how one reporter described the product.)

“With Visitor Pass, we don’t need to have a separate badge, sign-in sheet, and sign-out sheeet,” says Anne Cuvellier, a social worker at the River Street School in Windsor, Connecticut. “It’s an all-in-one package — which works.” (See Ms. Cuvellier on our video at http://www.visitorpasssolutions.com/PC.html.)

Here’s how it works. When visitors sign in, they fill out their I.D. badge, a self-adhesive label. This action automatically transfers their information onto a duplicate record sheet underneath.

The label liner is opaque, preventing subsequent visitors from seeing who signed in before them. (They can’t lift the liner to peek, either, because the outer edge is sealed. No other manual sign-in system in the world offers this kind of confidentiality.)

The Visitor Pass Registry Book is used by thousands of schools, hospitals, businesses, and government agencies worldwide. Organizations of all sizes have found it to be an effective tool for managing their flow of visitors easily and affordably.

“It’s a very efficient way for any building that has a lot of visitors to achieve a fairly high level of security,” says Data Management CEO Dan Hincks.