HIPAA News

Box Butte General Hospital Secures its Virtual Desktop Environment using Imprivata's OneSign Platform.

(March 19, 2009)-- The joined authentication and access management company, Imprivata®, Inc., announced that Box Butte General Hospital (BBGH), an Alliance, Nebraska-based non-profit critical access facility, has secured its virtual desktop environment using Imprivata's OneSign Platform. Using OneSign, BBGH has increased enterprise security while also enhancing clinician satisfaction by making it easier for them to manage passwords and access the applications and information needed on a daily basis.

When electronic charting to better manage patient care, improve productivity and trim costs across the organization, was implemented by BBGH an unintended consequence arose. Although tracking and storing patient data became more efficient, the new system elevated the password management problem to an intolerable level. Almost 10% of the staff forgot passwords or needed password resets from the help desk each week. The facility's IT staff sought a solution and decided that OneSign's single sign-on (SSO) and authentication management (AM) capabilities were a perfect fit.

At the time they were implementing OneSign, the IT department was also planning to deploy Sun Ray Virtual Display Clients and Smart Cards from Sun Microsystems for a low-cost virtual desktop environment that was both convenient and green. Imprivata's OneSign Platform integrated seamlessly with the Sun Ray Smart Cards, providing the staff with compliant and secure authentication and access to patient data -- while also ensuring high levels of clinician satisfaction with the new process and systems.

"Not only did we need to prevent clinicians from sharing or writing down passwords in light of HIPAA regulations, we wanted to ensure optimal productivity and extract the most value possible from our electronic charting initiative," said Mandy Whaley, network administrator at BBGH. "No matter where our employees are, they can use Sun Ray clients with OneSign to conveniently access applications and information -- without having to remember passwords."

Imprivata's OneSign Platform enables secure employee access, improves user productivity and lowers overall costs, helping to protect a growing number of healthcare organizations' critical information assets. It makes it easier to manage and demonstrate compliance with healthcare industry regulations, whether tasked with HIPAA compliance, SOX, or the UK Data Protection Act. OneSign seamlessly integrates strong authentication, enterprise single sign-on, physical access control, user provisioning and event reporting to provide one enterprise-wide automated employee information access policy managed and enforced within a single, easy-to-use administrative framework.

"With an increasing number of organizations adopting virtualization as a greener and less costly alternative, protecting confidential data becomes even more critical. At Box Butte, OneSign secures virtual desktop access to patient data while offering users a convenient method of authenticating using their smart cards," said Omar Hussain, president and CEO, Imprivata. "Using OneSign with Sun Rays allows all the advantages of a virtual environment, along with increased security and improved user satisfaction."

For More Information Visit www.imprivata.com.

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