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.

Security compliance often requires complex passwords – causing user frustration and helpdesk calls. Jon Wu, System Engineer at Verity Credit Union, joined me for a webinar on how SSO helped Verity increase user productivity and customer satisfaction. Below is the transcribed Q&A from the webinar. View the full webinar here Question 1: Did auditing play a role in your decision to buy single sign-on, and has it helped with reporting on user access? Answer: Yes it did. When we first mentioned that we would be getting a password program, users were nervous. They thought, “is this password program going to remember all of my passwords and keep it secure?” When we presented to Imprivata, they said no problem, it’s all taken care of. From end to end the passwords are encrypted. Imprivata takes care of both situations, and we don’t have to worry about it being exposed in any way.

As we all know, the CJIS policy is now final and mandates that all agencies must have enforced unique IDs strong passwords by September, 2010, and that all agencies must comply with the CJIS Advanced Authentication requirement by 2013. However, if your agency has performed a system upgrade after 2005, the 2013 deadline advances to the time of the upgrade. If your agency is audited and found not to be in compliance with the CJIS policy, it could face losing access to CJIS systems.

Last week, ecfirst's CEO, Ali Pabrai joined me for a live webinar that discussed a checklist for healthcare IT Security compliance. If you missed the webinar, you won't want to miss this -- we've gone ahead and transcribed our answers from the Q&A session. Question 1: Where can I go to find out exactly which set of rules / regulations apply to my business? There are so many different ones which change often that it's difficult to stay current. Answer: That is one of the areas that must be addressed in a comprehensive risk analysis activity. It’s critical to keep up with HITECH Act changes. The best source is the OCR site at www.hhs.gov. Also, it’s important to keep up with State regulations, especially CA, Massachusetts, etc.

Imprivata experienced a record-breaking year in 2010, punctuated by several prestigious awards and first place ratings from leading industry organizations. These honors underscore our dedication to providing customers and partners with exceptional technology and services, and help to further define Imprivata as the leader in single sign-on (SSO) and access management. We are extremely proud of these accolades, and wanted to share with you a few of the high points from 2010...

Recent survey results released show only 50.7% of U.S. hospitals with implemented electronic medical records (EMRs). While transitioning to a paperless system seems to be a logical evolution in the health care system, the rather slow rate of EMR adoption does not surprise me. Even with the passage of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) in February 2009 which attached a monetary incentive to implementation, technologies that do not seamlessly fit into clinicians’ day-to-day activities, improve patient care, and enable them to work more efficiently fail to achieve widespread acceptance. In order to improve EMR adoption rates in the U.S., we must provide doctors with tools that do not disrupt time spent with the patients, while enhancing their ability to access vital information quickly and efficiently.

There' s been a lot of talk and focus on the Meaningful Use provisions of the HITECH Act. I worry that we're becoming too focused on the details of Meaningful Use, and losing the bigger picture. The government instituted the Meaningful Use criteria and incentives because they believe that electronic medical records can improve quality of care and access to care – but only if the EMR solutions are actually deployed and used. Hence Meaningful Use.

Last month, Kristi Roose from Mahaska Health Partnership joined me for a live webinar that discussed deploying SSO and Strong Authentication, and the steps you can take to get to Meaningful Use faster. If you missed the webinar, you won't want to miss this -- we've gone ahead and transcribed our answers from the Q&A session. Question 1: How long did it take to roll a unit out to all the departments and how long did it take to see acceptance to the change? Answer: We approached these rollouts one unit at a time, and the time frame depended on the number of users. Usually it took about 1-2 weeks per unit to make sure that everyone was comfortable with the product. Once the unit was rolled out acceptance was immediate; customers were grateful for the product and relieved to be able to access data more easily. It was a relief for their workflow.

The recent Ponemon Institute benchmark study on patient data privacy and security practices sheds some much-needed light on the practice of data protection within our nation’s hospitals. According to the study, today’s hospitals have little confidence in their ability to secure patient records, revealing just how vulnerable they are to data breaches – a concern for all patients. Highlighted are some of the key findings...