The Right Prescription for LifeCare: How PDK Protects a Large-Scale Healthcare Facility
- ProdataKey
- Oct 20
- 7 min read
A few miles south of the Canadian border sits LifeCare Medical Center, a vital healthcare provider serving the residents of Roseau County, Minnesota. Caring for the population of northern Minnesota for over 45 years, LifeCare provides a variety of essential healthcare services, from birthing care and behavioral health to rehabilitation, emergency care, and more.
On top of the crucial medical services they provide, the team at LifeCare is committed to another goal: ensuring the security of all life and property in their facilities. But with various campuses spread across miles of rural landscape, this is much easier said than done. In order to manage security across their various facilities, LifeCare relies on the industry-leading cloud-based access control from ProdataKey (PDK). PDK empowers the LifeCare staff to control access, meet audit requirements, protect crucial data and resources, and provide peace of mind to patients and their loved ones.
Bringing ProdataKey to LifeCare
LifeCare’s relationship with ProdataKey began in early 2023 when they recognized a need for door access in their newly constructed Warroad Wellness Center. Denelle Hilliard, Senior Territory Representative at Per Mar Security Services, instantly recognized that PDK was the exact solution they needed.
“At the Wellness Center, they needed solid reporting for Medicare. And right away, I knew that PDK with all its reporting features was the perfect solution.”
Born and raised in northern Minnesota, Denelle felt a personal connection to this project. “I actually know LifeCare’s footprint and I understand just how vital it is to have those services in our rural community up north,” she explained. “So when I got the call I was really excited, because it makes me feel like I get to help my home and community up there.”
Receiving great feedback from LifeCare’s staff, the first installation of PDK at the Warroad Wellness Center set the stage for a larger transformation across the whole organization.
“The Wellness Center was our very first foothold with PDK and since then, we've been moving forward with getting all of our facilities onto the PDK platform.”
Evan Bruggeman - Director of Information Systems at LifeCare
Over time, their PDK system has expanded to include areas like their main campus in Roseau, the Greenbush assisted living facility, and Greenbush clinic.
As a newly constructed building, the Wellness Center gave Per Mar’s team of technicians the freedom to install their hardware of choice: PDK’s High Security Red Readers. These readers allow LifeCare’s staff to utilize encrypted Red Credentials for read-in and read-out throughout the building. However, not all LifeCare facilities provided the same blank slate that the Wellness Center did–other buildings required PDK to be integrated with existing access control infrastructure. Luckily, ProdataKey’s intuitive system was compatible with the existing HID readers they had in place. “For putting a new access control system in an existing building, PDK is really a great solution,” Denelle remarks. Despite the diversity of infrastructure across the various campuses, Per Mar was able to bring every facility under a unified PDK system.
Managing Access for the Medical Center
With ProdataKey access control set up across LifeCare’s many healthcare facilities, Evan and his team have been able to configure detailed door schedules, access groups, system lockdowns, and more. “We don't have any doors that don't follow some sort of access schedule,” Evan explains. “And we've got it built so people with different jobs get put into specific Groups, and with that they get specific access.”
For example, fitness instructors at the Wellness Facility have access to their gym and studio facilities, but they cannot enter areas like the obstetrics room (OB) or operating room (OR). Alternatively, surgeons can enter the operating room, but don’t have unlimited access to wellness facilities. These group rules ensure that people are only given access to the spaces they are authorized to be in–giving the LifeCare staff confidence that day-to-day healthcare operations will run smoothly, and they can avoid the threat of unauthorized access throughout their facilities.
In the rare instance that something does go wrong, like an intruder breaking into a facility, Evan has set up emergency protocols for each location. “We have panic buttons that will automatically call local law enforcement when pressed,” he describes. “And within PDK, I worked with Per Mar to build out a lockdown feature for each of our facilities. Essentially, I can go into the PDK Access app and turn on that function and it'll lock down all the doors.” Once the doors are locked, only authorized staff and emergency response teams can enter the facilities.
With PDK, the LifeCare staff can rest assured that their patients and staff are safe at all times. Additionally, with areas like the pharmacy and storage rooms secured, they can also trust that the proper protections are in place to safeguard the medicines, resources, and tools needed to provide the best healthcare services possible.
An Integrated System for Elevated Healthcare Security
LifeCare’s security ecosystem is more than just a network of locks and readers–it’s a fully integrated security platform designed to protect the organization from all angles. By integrating ProdataKey with technologies like OpenEye and Microsoft Entra ID, Per Mar has helped LifeCare build a seamless, intelligent system that improves security and business operations at the same time.
At the heart of this system is the integration between PDK and OpenEye, tying together access control and surveillance tools. Through this integration, access events and video footage are synchronized, so LifeCare staff can easily match a door event with its corresponding video clip.
“If there’s ever a concerning situation, we can tie those two instances together, pull the data, and be able to see exactly what happened,” Evan remarked. While Per Mar and LifeCare have worked together to create a system that tackles security proactively, this video surveillance integration is essential for any instances where reactive security is needed.
The integration between PDK and Microsoft Entra ID has further streamlined LifeCare’s operations. With a PDK.io system that has garnered over 3,700 user profiles, the team at LifeCare have found Microsoft’s Entra ID platform to be an essential tool to streamline their employee management. Instead of manually managing credentials or updating permissions across multiple distinct systems, user data flows automatically from Entra ID into PDK. Each employee’s role in Entra determines which doors they can access, and those permissions update automatically if the person changes departments.
The Entra integration also makes it easy to facilitate employee on-boarding and off-boarding. “We’re not having to think of multiple places to go to disable things when an employee leaves. We can manage it all right through Entra, and it’ll take care of it on its own,” explains Evan. When an employee leaves, Evan and his team can utilize this integration to automatically remove a user from all platforms after their final day, instantly revoking access permissions, email log-ins, and more.
As LifeCare continues to provide healthcare services to the population of northern Minnesota with the help of ProdataKey, they rely on integrations like Microsoft Entra ID and OpenEye to streamline their daily management and address their security needs with confidence.
Elevating the Patient and Community Experience
Ultimately, LifeCare’s investment in ProdataKey is about more than securing doors–it’s about improving the experience for any patient or staff member who passes through them. One of the most prominent examples of this is the Wellness Center, which doubles as a fitness facility for community members.
“We use PDK for our gym and Wellness Center memberships. It’s been a great way to allow 24/7 access while keeping the buildings secure.”
Evan Bruggeman, Director of Information Systems at LifeCare
With PDK, the LifeCare staff can trust that their members can participate in their class of choice–barre, vinyasa yoga, spin, pilates, martial arts, and more–without the stress of unapproved guests entering the space.
LifeCare has also set up automations using PDK that make patient arrivals at LifeCare more comfortable. When vehicles drive up to the emergency room entrance, a request-to-exit input will trigger and automatically open the garage door. “This automation lets patients enter directly into a heated garage, giving them extra time to get out safely. Since we serve a lot of elderly patients, we want those ER drop-offs to be easy and comfortable.” These small but meaningful innovations demonstrate how ProdataKey’s access control directly enhances the patient experience and helps LifeCare achieve their four key values: compassion, accountability, respect, and excellence (CARE).
Building Safer Healthcare Facilities with ProdataKey
For LifeCare Medical Center, reliable security is a reflection of their commitment to care. “We want our patients to be able to feel and talk positively about their overall experience once they leave–and security plays a big role in that,” remarks Allison Harder, LifeCare’s Director of Community Relations.
Whether patients are arriving for a routine check-up or an extended stay in a long-term care facility, the team at LifeCare is dedicated to making patients feel at home. Evan explains:
“For the peace of mind of our patients and their families, we want them to know that we’re doing all we can to keep them and their loved ones safe and secure.”
A reliable, integrated access control system ensures that safety is never in question, allowing staff and residents alike to focus on what truly matters: support, comfort, and community.
This partnership between LifeCare, Per Mar Security Services, and ProdataKey is a moving example of how technology can truly enhance care. “PDK really was the perfect solution for LifeCare to take advantage of, and a perfect solution for Per Mar to be able to install,” Denelle happily concludes.
Thanks to the intuitive cloud-based solutions of ProdataKey and the expertise of Per Mar’s technicians, LifeCare has shown how access control has become an essential tool for healthcare providers to create the best experience possible for their patients.
If you want to learn more about how ProdataKey could benefit your business, schedule a demo today.
ProdataKey is a team of security integrators with decades of hands-on, in-the-field experience.
PDK believes that the best technology is created by professionals who know what it takes to secure a facility properly and provide the end user with a solution that instills confidence and safety.
PDK is passionate about creating technology to enhance the security, safety, and overall experience of both the professionals installing electronic access control and those that live with and use the system. PDK continues to create technology every day to enhance its products and the products of its technology partners.
