Radiology Services at Henry Ford Health Improve Patient Safety by Relieving User Woes
INTRODUCTION
Seconds matter at Michigan’s Henry Ford Health System, where delays caused by mistyped passwords and application lockouts are in opposition to quality patient outcomes. For the system’s Radiology Services department, with radiologists spread across 13 metropolitan area Detroit sites, totalling 1,400 beds in three hospitals, password-related hassles were taking their toll.
THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
“Getting the on-call IT person out of bed at 2 a.m. during a trauma to reset a radiologist’s password was happening more often,” says Darryl Bonner, supervisor of radiology information services at Henry Ford. “Remembering the different types of passwords required for 14 to 20 applications just isn’t our doctors’ highest priority.”
Even the daily strain of password proliferation for 1,000 end-users was seriously eroding radiology SLAs for Henry Ford, which logs 2.2 million patient visits annually. Additionally, patient confidentiality was increasingly jeopardized. “By the spring of 2006, there was a constant flood of lockouts,” Bonner says. “And, as log-on aggravations grew, it became more and more common for one user to sign-on in the morning and everyone else to use that person’s access throughout the rest of the day.”
Given the patient security risks and the need to be HIPAA compliant, finding a solution was critical. “I began to refamiliarize myself with the single sign-on (SSO) market, which I’d investigated previously but abandoned due to cost,” Bonner explains. He received am e-mail about Imprivata OneSign® . “I hadn’t even heard of the company, but it offered a purpose-built appliance called Imprivata OneSign. For a 20 person IT staff, a plug-and-play device is very attractive. When I learned Imprivata OneSign was also competitively priced, we immediately scheduled a Web demo.”
Although Bonner completed a due diligence investigation of four vendors, Imprivata impressed him from the start. “Right off the bat, my questions were answered during the Web demo,” Bonner recalls. “So many times vendors stumble around, which shows that they don’t know enough about their own product or the product can’t do something I’ve asked about. With Imprivata, not only were all of my questions addressed, but I was shown how their solution accomplished whatever I asked about.”
THE IMPRIVATA ONESIGN SOLUTION
During the on-site trial, Imprivata continued to shine. “The on-site demo unit gave me even more confidence that Imprivata OneSign performed sophisticated SSO chores, such as regular password refreshes for every user, without adding any development or administrative burdens,” Bonner confirms. “My team had it set up and ready to roll-out in what seemed like minutes. This wasn’t the case with the other products.” The team was also impressed with the ease of ongoing administration. “Our doctors expect us to move quickly,” explains Bonner. “Our on-site trial showed us that anyone on the team could set it up, add applications, run reports, and perform other tasks.”
In August 2006, Bonner pitched Imprivata OneSign to the front office, where SSO was immediately embraced. “Since multiple passwords had frustrated our executives for some time, the concept practically sold itself,” Bonner recalls.
By October, implementation began. Like most customers, Henry Ford plugged in the appliance and completed an uneventful migration a few days later. “We’re a Microsoft Windows Server 2000 and 2003 environment,” says Bonner. “This includes our RIS by IDX and our PACS by Stentor. Even though GE bought IDX and Phillips now owns Stentor, Imprivata OneSign worked flawlessly with everything.”
THE RESULTS
An equally smooth rollout to end-users began at the start of 2007. “User comfort is always our primary concern,” Bonner stresses. “So we rolled out Imprivata OneSign by subdepartment. For our main location, which includes most of our users, this took only two weeks. With one exception, all other sites were completed before summer vacations started. Once people were back to work in September, we finished that location, too.”
In addition to walking users through their new sign-on routine, IT staff explained advanced Imprivata OneSign features such as automatic time-outs and self-service password resets. “We also created a quick-start document that pointed to online help resources,” explains Bonner. “And we designed an e-mail advertising campaign that not only familiarized people with Imprivata OneSign, but also kept us in constant communication with users. As a result, the vast majority of users picked it up right away. For the small minority that wanted us as a security blanket, we worked on building their confidence until they didn’t need us anymore.”
Moving forward, Bonner is adding more users as radiology sites grow and introducing Imprivata OneSign advanced security capabilities for authenticating users via proximity technology. “Radiology is adding two new sites, bringing our total Imprivata OneSign users up to about 1,400,” Bonner notes. “Yet password-related helpdesk calls have fallen to a trickle.”
Imprivata’s unique technology for upgrading to strong authentication is taking security at Henry Ford to a new level. Strong authentication is the combination of two or more types of identifying factors, such as a password and a security token. As a pilot project, a select group of doctors are using card readers to automatically log on and off based on how close they are to a workstation. The readers work with Henry Ford’s existing employee ID badges. “You couldn’t take the card readers away from the doctors who have them,” says Bonner. “Demand is growing phenomenally as peers see the technology in action.”
“Although we started the SSO project with high expectations, Imprivata OneSign has blown us away,” concludes Bonner. “Even though strong authentication wasn’t originally a purchasing factor, we’re now budgeting for a department-wide implementation far more quickly and fully than is normal for IT projects.”
