Imprivata Healthcare Innovation Award Finalists Series Spotlight on: Memorial Healthcare

We are pleased to recognize our inaugural 2012 Healthcare Innovation Award finalists, including Catholic Health Partners, Johns Hopkins, Memorial Healthcare, MedCentral Health System, Mercy Health System and Sanford Health, for their innovative application of Imprivata solutions to improve clinical workflow and increase productivity and data security. We will be spotlighting these finalists on our blog leading up to the November 8 announcement of the winner at Imprivata HealthCon 2012 User Conference.

Memorial Healthcare, located in Owosso Michigan, is on the forefront of leveraging technology to enhance patient care, and for 10 of the past 11 years has been voted one of top 100 “Most Wired Hospitals” by Hospital and Health Networks. As a hospital dedicated to adopting technology in support of patient care, Memorial Healthcare was challenged with balancing ease of access while protecting patient data. Clinicians need fast access to applications to deliver efficient patient care, but the hospital must protect the privacy of patient health records.

Data security is a real challenge in a highly mobile environment like a hospital, where clinicians move between patient rooms and shared workstations throughout the day, handling many different patient records. Memorial Healthcare knew it had to provide a secure, roaming desktop environment that follows the user through the day, while automatically locking down unattended workstations.

In Memorial Healthcare’s initial implementation in 2005, Imprivata OneSign provided strong authentication and single sign-on to a variety of MEDITECH applications. This allowed Memorial’s physicians and clinicians could work more efficiently, without the password headaches and repeated logins of the past, and with a desktop that followed them through the day.

While Imprivata met Memorial’s immediate needs in 2005, it has adapted to changing requirements in the years since initial deployment. For example: Memorial Healthcare is now using VMware View and Imprivata OneSign® Virtual Desktop Access which creates virtualized desktops managed within the central data center. These desktops follow each user during the course of their shifts, and are removed from memory when the shift is over. Memorial also implemented OneSign Secure Walk-Away®, which uses facial recognition technology to automatically lock down the workstation when the authorized user is not present, without requiring an explicit logout.

Imprivata OneSign remains an important part of the patient care environment at Memorial, and the hospital continues to partner with Imprivata to address the industry’s new and emerging healthcare IT security needs.