Alberta Hospital in Edmonton has added new features and procedures to prevent psychiatric patients from wandering away, Alberta Health Services announced Thursday.

The psychiatric intensive care unit now has a higher security fence; 20 new security cameras and one thermal camera have been added to the hospital; and two sets of doors controlled by staff have been installed on some units.

Patients without ground privileges will no longer be allowed outside to smoke by themselves. Instead, they will be given nicotine replacement therapy.

The changes at the psychiatric facility in northeast Edmonton followed a review examining patient "elopements" or unauthorized departures over a three-year period.

The measures come nearly four years after the death of Lorraine Adolph, a 68-year-old patient with schizophrenia who disappeared from Alberta Hospital on Dec. 4, 2008 after she went outside for a cigarette. Her frozen body was found in the snow one week later.

The panel made 24 recommendations. The measures affecting Alberta Hospital have already been implemented; Alberta Health Services is in the process of completing the others.

They include reviewing the floor plans of other facilities to see where patients are most likely to leave; improving training for staff and developing a provincial database to compile patient elopements.