Ponemon Institute Study Quantifies How Single Sign-On Can Save Hospitals Time and Money

Study spotlights the value of single sign-on solutions for hospitals seeking meaningful use credits

An eye-opening new study that was just released from the Ponemon Institute revealed roughly 60 percent of the more than 400 healthcare IT respondents believe that single sign-on (SSO) solutions support their organizations’ efforts to demonstrate the “meaningful use” of EMR adoption.

Perhaps even more staggering was the discovery that without the implementation of any SSO solution, clinicians are wasting time and resources. On average, a clinician spends almost 200 hours annually trying to access various forms of EMR due to the many passwords and logins they must juggle to access the applications they need, adding up to $2.6 million in potential savings. That time and money saved can be diverted to other areas that can drive improvements in patient care, including the addition of new staff or other life saving medical technology.

In full closure, Imprivata sponsored the survey because we have long heard from our customers how much time Imprivata saves their doctors and nurses. Having said that, even we were a little surprised at how compelling some of the findings were:

• SSO technology saves clinicians from eight to 15 minutes a day depending on the solution utilized, which can be translated into 103-191 hours per year.
• Prior to SSO, clinicians had an individual average of 5.7-6.6 passwords or pins that were required to access critical applications and patient data.
• 92 percent of respondents believe Imprivata’s OneSign SSO simplifies system users’ access to applications and data.

Full results of the 2011 Ponemon Institute survey: “How Single Sign-On Is Changing Healthcare” can be downloaded here. You can also download a second report from the same survey that compares Imprivata to other SSO vendors here.

I’m most interested in hearing from you—are you surprised by these results?