IP cameras: surgery CCTV without the expense

Originally published in GP magazine .

Written for GP magazine around 2011. This is the version I submitted - the published article may have been edited.

Do your receptionists feel safe and secure while working? Do you leave personal belongings in your room while out and leave it unlocked? Has your surgery ever been broken into? Have you thought about a CCTV system? We are all used to seeing CCTV clips on telly and every shop and public place seems to be under scrutiny, but have you got one?

CCTV systems have traditionally been expensive, requiring custom cabling, special video recorders or more recently hard disk recorders, and have only been accessible from the monitor. Well, if you are thinking of CCTV it might be worth looking at the latest IP cameras that actually run off your network and can utilise your existing equipment to save money, and can allow you to view what they are seeing from any screen in your practice or even from home. This might be very useful if you open late and don’t want to leave the doors open.

IP cameras connect to your existing computer network either by cable into any computer socket or, if you have a wireless network, by that. The advantage of a cable connection is that it is easier to set up and is more reliable. The major advantage of the wireless is you can put the cameras anywhere, including outside, as long as you can get power to them, which is usually easy as opposed to having to run new Cat5 cabling.

Each camera talks to the network and most come with built-in software that allows you to see what they are seeing from any web browser connected to the same network. I recently bought an eyespy247 outdoor camera. I plugged it in and initially connected to it by cable. I then went through the built-in setup and told it the password for the wireless network and then positioned it outside. It connected to the network (it needs to be in range) and I can now see what it is seeing. The camera I bought (like others) actually comes with software on it that includes basic motion detection and it will send information automatically to the internet, allowing you to see what it is seeing from any computer in the world (with the right password) and recording any events that are triggered. The eyespy247 comes with one year’s free connection to this service that is easy to set up, and for £200 I have a security camera - indoor ones that are suitable for watching waiting rooms or corridors are around £100.

The only slight worry is if I lose the internet connection; however, you can get more sophisticated. If you have an old PC you aren’t using, or a machine that you can leave on all day, you can get software that allows you to manage several cameras and does cleverer detection of people or objects, trying to reduce the number of false alarms. I’m playing with one such piece of software called Vitamin D Video that I really like, but there are others. This method usually involves saving video to the hard drive of the machine and will send the video to the cloud as well in case the machine gets stolen in the raid!

This is all remarkably easy to set up. I’m sure someone at your local IT department would love to help set it up for you, if only to play - as long as you pay for the kit! In these times of austerity it makes sense to maximise the productivity of the infrastructure you already have. Don’t spend a fortune on a CCTV system when for not much money you can have a superb system that is very flexible.

Finally, from a legal point of view you need to display a clear sign somewhere in your building that is visible to the public that you are video recording public areas. It’s probably worth having a written policy that you have shared with your patient panel, and you need to think through some of the confidentiality issues about releasing video that identifies people to police etc.