Healthcare Security Is a Design Issue Now, Not an Add-On

Violence, theft, and security incidents are facility operations problems. They land on the facility director’s desk as staffing decisions, access-control decisions, and environment decisions — usually after an incident has priced the lesson. A session at the IFHE 2026 World Congress argued the point from its title onward: security is a vital design issue, core infrastructure to be designed, operated, and staffed — not an operational add-on bolted onto a finished building.

The session. “Healthcare Security: A Vital Design Issue” ran Monday, October 19, 2026, on the IFHE Stage in New Orleans. Its panel, as listed in the official program, was drawn from the people who run security in operating health systems — named in the session record below — and moderated by the president of the IAHSS Foundation.

The program’s framing

Incidents are shaping the environment itself. The program states that violence, theft, and security incidents increasingly shape how healthcare environments are designed, operated, and staffed. That is a facility claim, not a security-department claim: the incident pattern in a hospital is now an input to how its spaces are planned and run, on the same footing as capacity or infection control.

Security as core design and infrastructure. Per the program, the session explored security as a core design and infrastructure issue rather than an operational add-on. The distinction decides budgets and timing. An add-on is purchased after opening, from an operating line, against finished architecture. Infrastructure is in the capital plan, in the drawings, and in the staffing model from the start.

Who was in the room matters

The panel spans systems, countries, and the profession’s institution. As listed in the program: a market director for security operations at AdventHealth who also serves as a vice president of IAHSS; the corporate security director of Christus Muguerza; a regional business development manager from HID Global; and the safety, security and parking director of HH Health System — moderated by Bill Navejar, President of the IAHSS Foundation.

The comparison is built into that roster. Per the program, the session drew lessons from systems in the United States and Latin America — two operating environments with different threat profiles, resources, and building stock, working the same problem.

The three working tensions

Per the program, the session’s material organized around tensions every facility leader recognizes:

• Openness against safety — a hospital must be the most open building in its community and a controlled environment at the same time
• Technology against human factors — access systems and surveillance do their work only inside staffing, training, and culture that use them well
• Silos against collaboration — the work runs across clinical, security, and facilities teams, and fails in the seams between them

For facility directors, the actionable reading is the third one. Security outcomes in a hospital are co-produced by teams that report through different chains. The session’s premise — that the environment itself is the medium all three teams share — gives facilities a standing reason to be at the table when security is designed, not merely when it is installed.

Related reading

• NFPA 101 Life Safety Code for Healthcare Facilities: The Complete Professional Guide
• The Modern Operating Room Is a Sustaining Problem, Not a Design Problem

Session record

• Session: Healthcare Security: A Vital Design Issue
• Event: IFHE 2026 World Congress (29th), co-located with HCD Conference + Expo, October 17–20, 2026, New Orleans
• Slot: Monday, October 19, 2026, 9:15–9:45 a.m., IFHE Stage
• Speakers, as listed in the official program: John Demming (AdventHealth; VP, IAHSS) · Francisco Villegas (Christus Muguerza) · Melanie Wright (HID Global) · Brett Bramlett (HH Health System) · Moderator: Bill Navejar (IAHSS Foundation)
• Source: IFHE 2026 World Congress official agenda