Single Sign-On for NHS

Single Sign-On for NHS Trust Organizations

 With access to patient data being one of the most sensitive issues for NHS Trusts, striking the right balance between security of information and user convenience is an important balancing act for those responsible for IT. Information is often held in multiple systems, from where it can be hard to pull together. And, of course, it needs to be held securely; but if data security becomes too intrusive staff can find ways to work around it, a common practice that often breaches Information Governance guidelines.

Fast access to applications and patient data remains one of the biggest hassles for clinical staff: ask nurses how big a problem it is to remember ten passwords that change every 30 days, and they will tell you that it is a problem. Solving password management problems carry two main benefits: for the IT team, it removes one of the biggest areas of helpdesk requests, while for clinical and non-clinical staff it takes away the pain of not being able to get access to applications when they need it. Solving the password issue with an easier secure access process can lead to a real gain in productivity: one trust has estimated that their consultants can see an extra patient per session just because the hassle of entering passwords has been taken away due to secure SSO solution integration.

“As an NHS organisation holding highly sensitive patient data, security is high on our list of priorities; however, to enable our staff to deliver the expected levels of patient care, we need to find a balance between securing our IT applications and making the systems accessible to all users,” said John Skinner, IT Director, Oxford HIS “Everyday IT issues, such as forgotten passwords and locked out users can have a serious impact on the ability of our clinical staff to do their jobs, and Imprivata OneSign provides us with the tools we need to solve access management issues at a local level, keeping clinicians working and ultimately improve patient care.”

NHS Trusts Choose Imprivata For Secure and Convenient Access Management

 Imprivata OneSign addresses the clinician’s patient healthcare access management challenges. It enables fast access to workstations and applications for authenticated users, which eliminates password management headaches & increases staff satisfaction. Imprivata OneSign extends seamless and convenient application access to all enterprise applications and patient data, allowing NHS organisations to: 

Accelerate Clinical Access to patient data and enable more time for patient care by:

•  Quickly enabling single sign-on for all local and CfH applications, removing the need for separate log-on credentials for each individual system;
• Enabling fast-user switching and session parking on shared workstations, allowing clinical staff to access their own workstation session without having to log on and off each time a user switch occurs;
• Enabling session persistence, allowing clinical staff to access their own single windows desktop session from any workstation, regardless of geographical location;
• Enabling Clinical Context Management to allow clinicians to rapidly access patient data that is held in multiple disparate applications. 

Improve Data Security by:

• The effortless deployment and management of the appropriate strong authentication device for different users, including all versions of the NHS Smartcard, biometrics, active/passive proximity and one time password tokens; 
• Removing the requirement to use generic logons to workstations and/or applications
• Automating the management of application passwords. 

Address Information Governance requirements by:

•  Centrally auditing all user access activities across disparate systems – both physical and ICT, in real time, providing a complete audit trail of who accessed what, when and from where;
• Enforcing access to corporate networks and applications;
• Enforcing password policies across all users and applications;
• Providing a comprehensive security infrastructure by integrating physical access with IT and data access.

With Imprivata OneSign, over 70 primary and secondary care NHS organisations are enabling clinical staff to improve the speed and efficiency at which they can access critical patient data using a single set of log-on credentials, leading to increased productivity and better patient care. Examples of these organisations include Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, East London Shared Service Primary Care Trust, Liverpool Womens NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle NHS Foundation Trust, Tameside and Glossop, Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust, University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire, University of South Manchester Trust and many more.