Law Enforcement and Healthcare Security
The primary purpose of healthcare organizations is to care for patients by offering them the protection they need. Healthcare security is mainly aimed at providing protection to all stakeholders in the healthcare environment (Colling & York, 2010). Law enforcement as well offers safety in healthcare through the legislation. However, the system of healthcare security may have varied guiding concepts. The primary goal of the healthcare security is to resolve issues while considering the best interests of the organization whereas the law enforcement is mainly aimed at providing security at all costs. Moreover, as noted by Colling and York (2010), most healthcare practitioners have the tendency of viewing security almost the same as law enforcement. Of course, there are some common grounds between them, but they entail different activities.
Law enforcement offers external protection to healthcare organizations by striving to protect the entire society through upholding the law. Alternatively, the agency security is unique to a specified group and is hence considered as a business function. The overall goal of the law enforcement is to provide a state of safety to the entire society (Colling & York, 2010). The law enforcement offers healthcare security by apprehending offenders, unlike the organizational security that just prevent the occurrence of incidents. According to Colling and York (2010), the security offered by the law enforcement is driven by the public opinion whereas that provided by the safety of the organization is driven by the return on investment.
The administrative remedy often tries to resolve security problems within the organization leaving out the law enforcement. The law enforcement resource, however, follows consistent priorities concerning the available resources (Colling & York, 2010). Furthermore, law enforcement is tax supported while organization security is privately funded. All in all, a healthcare organization has a moral responsibility to ensure the safety of all individuals in its environment and should be able to do it with or without the help of the law enforcement.
Reference
Colling, R. & York, T. (2010). Hospital and Healthcare Security (5th ed., pp. 1-621). New York: Elsevier.
