NHS Scotland contracts with Imprivata for its OneSign single sign-on and password reset solution.

In one of the most significant security roll-outs in recent NHS history, patient health records at Scotland's 1,300 GP practices and 97 hospitals are to be secured using Imprivata's desktop single sign-on (SSO) system, OneSign 4.5, NHS Scotland has announced. At the head of the security features is the ability to access all applications after one sign-on process, backed up by self-service password resets, which overcomes the expensive hassle of calls to a helpdesk.

VAR Trustmarque has collaborated with Northgate Managed Services to help win a single-sign-on (SSO) contract covering Scotland’s NHS network. As part of its 'Better Health, Better Care' initiative, NHS Scotland was looking to remove unnecessary cost and delays, and install a less-complex workflow system associated with electronic patient data. The SSO and password reset solution is based on Imprivata technology, and will cover the many patient systems in hospitals and health communities across Scotland.

Leading into Patient Safety Awareness Week (March 11-17), a recent survey conducted by Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare (PSQH) and HealthLeaders Media allowed 100 hospitals and health systems to provide insight on how they see the current state of patient identification and registration procedures in their facilities. The survey found that more than half of respondents (54%) are not very confident in their patient identification strategies.  

Why are patients misidentified?

Historically, information security has been a pretty horizontal domain. Regardless of your industry, company size, or geographic location, you needed security policies, physical security controls, and security technologies like firewalls and antivirus software. This remains true but over the past few years, we've seen a lot of growth in specialized information security requirements for different industry business processes….Imprivata went from a general purpose single sign-on appliance vendor to an Identity and Access Management (IAM) specialist in the health care industry.