Healthcare facilities carry a contradiction at their core: they must remain open and welcoming to the public while protecting patients, staff, controlled substances, infants, and behavioral health areas from the same public.
Wittner Security Consultants provides independent physical security assessment and design for Northern California hospitals, clinics, and health systems, focused on the places where that tension is sharpest.
The work is about resolving that open-but-secure contradiction deliberately rather than by accident:
Two California drivers shape healthcare physical security conversations right now. California's workplace violence prevention requirements for employers carry a physical security dimension, and California's hospital weapons screening law, AB 2975, is prompting facilities to rethink entrance design and screening. These are your obligations as an operator, and they involve HR, training, and clinical policy well beyond physical security.
Our role is the physical piece: entrances, access, environmental design, duress provisions, and how the building supports your programs. We work alongside your compliance, safety, and legal teams. We do not certify or guarantee compliance with any regulation, and we do not touch patient data or privacy, which is a separate discipline entirely.
Paul's four decades in the field include work with Adventist Health. That kind of first-hand exposure to how these environments actually operate is what separates advice grounded in the field from advice grounded in a brochure.
The whole facility through a healthcare lens: the emergency department, behavioral health and maternity units, pharmacy and controlled-substance areas, public entrances and wayfinding, parking and campus grounds, and the physical security side of workplace violence prevention. Findings are prioritized by risk and are written to be defensible to your board, your insurer, and accreditation reviewers.
AB 2975 is prompting California hospitals to reconsider entrance design and weapons screening. We address the physical and environmental design side of that: how entrances, queuing, and screening points are laid out and how they affect flow and staffing. The full obligation is yours, involves policy and training, and the compliance determination rests with you and your counsel. We do not certify compliance.
The physical security dimension of them: access control, duress and panic provisions, environmental design, and how the building supports de-escalation and response, particularly in the emergency department. Workplace violence prevention in California is broader than physical security and involves HR, training, and recordkeeping. We work alongside those programs rather than replacing them.
No. This is physical security only: the building, access, cameras, and environment. Patient data protection and network security are separate disciplines, and we do not work in them or advise on them.
Tell Paul about the site and what prompted the call. He will tell you honestly what the work involves and whether he is the right person for it.