Senior healthcare facility first in US to deploy iris biometrics access solution

Jun 21, 2018, 1:01 pm EDT | Stephen Mayhew

Princeton Identity has revealed in a case study that one of its customers is reporting a huge increase in brand awareness resulting from publicity of its status as the nation’s first senior residential and healthcare facility to deploy iris recognition technology as part of a physical security system.

Brevillier Village deployed the Princeton Identity IOM Access solution which allows staff and residents with normal mental acuity to unlock exterior doors to exit the building using wall-mounted iris readers positioned near each exit, while restricting residents with dementia from opening the doors and leaving the building unsupervised, making it possible for non-dementia and dementia residents to live comfortably in the same building as part of a mixed population.

Non-technical personnel at Brevillier Village can easily register new residents to the system and, if a resident begins to experience cognitive decline, his or her iris credentials can be deactivated, allowing them to remain living in the familiar surroundings of their own apartment rather than move to a fully locked facility.

The Princeton Identity solution works with the Assa-Abloy Securitron access control infrastructure that was already in place at Brevillier Village, with each iris scan logging as an event within the access control system. Two biometric readers are located at each monitored doorway – one for standing residents and the other for those in wheelchairs – and are connected to integrated control units that communicate over Ethernet cabling back to the server room.

“If there’s any question about who left the building at a given time, we can look at who had their iris scanned and then check surveillance video to make sure that they are the only person who went through the door,” explains Dan Desrocher, the facility’s Director of Development. “From a security standpoint, this is far more information than was available using the keypad system we had in place, for which everyone shared the same code.”

“This project highlight some of the advantages in deploying iris recognition in healthcare and assisted-living facilities,” added Mark Clifton, Princeton Identity’s CEO. “There are no keypad codes to remember, it doesn’t require a free hand and it’s touchless, making it completely sanitary.”

Biometrics Research Group, Inc. estimates that the entire global marketplace for biometric solutions in the healthcare market will reach approximately US$5 billion by 2020.