Date Added: 8/25/2008
Posted by:
 birdie
 supporthitug.org

Author/Source:
 Imprivata

Viewed: 104 times

Healthcare providers can support HIPAA privacy and security requirements by strengthening application password security and establishing a log of user application access data. Imprivata® has helped hundreds of healthcare organizations around the globe successfully address these needs with an award winning solution recognized by KLAS® as ‘‘Best Single Sign-On Solution for 2006.''

Imprivata OneSign^TM is an affordable, appliance-based approach that enables healthcare providers to implement ESSO for healthcare applications from Cerner, Epic, Meditech, McKesson, Siemens, and many more--- including single sign-on to all Web-based, client/server and legacy applications. Through a centralized approach to password management, OneSign makes secure single sign-on services quick to deploy, and easy to administer. OneSign makes it simple and practical for healthcare institutions of all sizes to adopt and enforce password and strong authentication policies that support HIPAA compliance---not to mention significantly improve the clinician's user experience and convenience.

According to OneSign design partner, Christopher Paidhrin, IT Security Officer for Southwest Washington Medical Center, ‘‘To be HIPAA compliant when you have back-end legacy systems is very difficult, because application vendors must be forced into authentication and authorization compliance. Healthcare organizations need a password authentication scheme that proxies, that is, comes between, all the legacy systems and the user interface. OneSign provides exactly that service, allowing organizations to jumpstart HIPAA compliance. With OneSign, the IT department can bring everyone to a common organizational and healthcare industry standard of strong passwords, and eventually move to biometrics and/or two token authentication.''

Beyond HIPAA Compliance - Other Advantages ESSO Delivers to Healthcare Providers

A well-designed ESSO solution needs to support the unique requirements of healthcare environments:

o Shared workstation support: Additional users should be able to sign on to a shared workstation without logging out the first user. One button lock/unlock and single sign-on/off should also be also supported.

o User accountability: The ESSO solution needs to record user access events and log files providing detailed reports on application access by user and by application.

o Support for authentication modalities: The ESSO solution should provide built-in support for major forms of strong authentication, including strong passwords, ID tokens and finger biometric technology.

o Universal application support: The ESSO solution must enable healthcare institutions to support single sign-on to any application, including popular healthcare solutions, such as Meditech, Cerner, McKesson and Med2020, Epic, Siemens, and others.

Once organizations have evaluated potential ESSO solutions against HIPAA requirements--- as well as other essential factors, such as cost and deployment requirements--- they are likely to be looking at a much shorter and more manageable list of potential ESSO solutions.

Imprivata OneSign provides distinct and practical support for helping organizations demonstrate compliance with key sections of HIPAA, but the advantages of OneSign extend far beyond compliance.

With OneSign, organizations benefit from increased user productivity, convenience, and speed of access to information--- critical in dynamic clinical environments where user workflows often require accessing multiple sets of data on a shared workstation and/or roaming from workstation to workstation.

With OneSign's built-in support for a broad range of strong authentication devices, healthcare organizations can opt to replace passwords altogether with finger biometrics, or make use of proximity badges popular in many clinical settings. In addition, OneSign integrates with Fusion from Carefx^TM to create a user driven, patient-centered workspace that synchronizes record context across multiple applications, increasing user productivity and patient safety. Lastly, third party provisioning systems can provision and de-provision application accounts within OneSign automatically, increasing ‘‘day-one'' user productivity and ensuring that application credentials in OneSign are always up-to-date.

Imprivata OneSign provides an easy, simply smart, and uniquely affordable enterprise single sign-on solution that delivers rapid ROI, increased user productivity and convenience, and regulatory compliance. It's the solution that is changing single sign-on in healthcare.