Imprivata provides NHS clinical staff with secure access to medical applications via SSO technology

02 February 2010

Imprivata®, Inc. has announced that George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust has become the latest UK healthcare organisation to rollout Imprivata OneSign to provide more than 700 clinical staff with streamlined access to medical applications via single sign-on (SSO) technology.

Delivered as part of a broader access management project designed to boost clinical efficiency, the implementation of OneSign will improve the speed at which clinical staff can access medical information including laboratory pathology, radiology and PACS applications and overall the levels of patient care they provide.

George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust required an authentication and access management solution that could be quickly and unobtrusively implemented onto the existing network and could provide SSO for a broad range of applications on a specialised Active Directory. Before OneSign, locked-out clinicians experienced 15-20 minutes of downtime before passwords could be reset locally which negatively impacted patient care.

The rollout of OneSign, delivered through Imprivata reseller and NHS Security specialist BMS, provides clinical staff with a single point of secure authentication through which they can connect to multiple medical systems, rather than jeopardising security by sharing passwords with colleagues or writing down log-on credentials.

The solution was rolled out to all hospital wards to ensure that all clinical staff were able to benefit from the efficiencies of SSO, as well as for IT & Information Management staff. With OneSign, IT staff can now quickly grant and revoke user access to applications, as well as allowing designated users to reset passwords locally via a simple web-based self-service function.

“Ensuring clinical staff can access healthcare information as quickly and efficiently as possible to make decisions about patient care should be a priority for any NHS organisation, however not at the risk of information security,” said James Norman Associate Director of Information Management and Technology, George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust. “We required a solution that was proven within the NHS, is cost-effective and can streamline how medical staff access applications and data whilst providing the right levels of security. With OneSign Single Sign-On, clinicians can get to the data they need with minimum fuss, helping the Trust deliver better levels of care to our patients.”

Imprivata OneSign simplifies clinician authentication to applications and makes it easier for care providers to access patient data. OneSign easily integrates with all applications and includes support for shared workstations, roaming desktops, fast user switching, a broad range of integrated strong authentication options and password policy implementation and management. OneSign delivers seamless and convenient access to all enterprise applications and patient data across more than 75 NHS trusts in the UK and Ireland.

“Healthcare staff on the NHS frontline need to make quick decisions about their patients, and all too often IT access-related issues are a roadblock to clinical productivity,” said Omar Hussain, CEO and President, Imprivata. “Technology should be an enabler for, not a barrier against quality healthcare and we are delighted to be helping George Eliot Hospital and other NHS Trusts streamline IT access clinicians and drive clinical productivity for better patient care.”