A passwordless future for clinicians: Simplifying, streamlining, and securing access to EHRs and other healthcare systems

Passwordless authentication is the future of healthcare, offering improved security, user experience, and patient care. 

Reducing passwords is good for clinicians; eliminating them is great. When a clinician taps their proximity badge to open the nearest workstation, then signs in to an EHR system like Epic without entering a password, they conserve precious time and focus for patient care. That’s the goal: passwordless authentication, and more time and attention towards what matters most.

Without passwordless authentication, clinicians need to remember and enter a long, complex password at the start of each shift – and many more times throughout. Passwords may be frequently required within the session for workflows that need strong security, such as e-prescribing of controlled substances, ordering, and witnessing. And along with the adoption of mobile devices and connected medical devices comes the need to enter complex passwords on touchscreen interfaces, which only amplifies password fatigue.

Furthermore, cybersecurity professionals keep requiring longer passwords to better defend against attacks and to meet regulatory and cyber insurance requirements. It’s not uncommon for IT teams transitioning to 8-to-12-character passwords to be told, halfway through their deployment, that security experts now consider 16 characters or more to be the acceptable minimum. Continuing this forced march of longer and more complex passwords simply isn't sustainable.

Passwordless authentication is designed to remove all this friction. With passwordless access in place, clinicians never need to use long, complex passwords, and they never get locked out for forgetting them. They also never feel compelled to use unsecure workarounds like sharing credentials just to access the tools they need when they need them.

Removing passwords means more secure access to preserve patient privacy

Passwordless methods of authentication are designed to intrinsically secure digital access. ‘Something you are’ factors like facial recognition and ‘something you have’ factors that leverage cryptographic keys are significantly more difficult to circumvent than passwords.

With passwordless authentication, accessing digital tools becomes automatic and nearly invisible, removing the frustration and barriers that can prevent clinicians from providing the best patient care they can. Passwordless, especially when it includes a biometric component, also helps with accountability and traceability by reducing credential sharing between time-pressured clinicians.

Passwordless authentication provides a better user experience

Imagine using a workstation or accessing patient data without ever needing to remember or reset complex passwords. Passwordless systems are designed to do just that by replacing passwords with more secure and user-friendly methods like facial recognition, secure tokens, and phishing-resistant badges.

For clinicians, this results in more than just convenience. By greatly eliminating tech friction, you also greatly lessen energy drain and cognitive burden. Clinicians consequently have more focus to give to patients, and organizations prevent more cases of burnout.

Is passwordless achievable for healthcare organizations today?

Some organizations are completely passwordless today, but few of these – if any – are in healthcare. Why is that? Well, it’s for the same reasons that Imprivata was able to dramatically reduce password use in healthcare where other providers couldn't.

Healthcare organizations have complex tech environments with lots of shared devices and other endpoints for workers on the go, as well as many specialized workflows and integrations for healthcare applications like Epic. By listening to the real-life needs of clinicians, often on-site and in person, Imprivata has been able to purpose-build solutions tailored to the industry’s unique challenges.

What is Imprivata doing to help eliminate passwords from clinical workflows?

Passwordless access is still in its early days – at least in terms of implementation and adoption – and this is especially true in healthcare. But Imprivata Enterprise Access Management (formerly Imprivata OneSign and Imprivata Confirm ID) makes the journey to passwordless achievable for healthcare organizations by using passwordless authentication methods like single sign-on (SSO) to reduce and even eliminate passwords for many workflows.

Though passwordless is still an emerging approach, now is an ideal time to chart a course to achieve passwordless for certain individual user cases, departments, or applications. Success in one area will prove the value and set the stage for broader rollouts on the path to achieving full passwordless.

Imprivata is hard at work expanding support for passwordless, with the goal of allowing our healthcare customers to eliminate all passwords for users, clinical or non-clinical. Please reach out if you are interested in a more detailed roadmap presentation and conversation about passwordless.

Discover more

Dive deeper into the benefits of passwordless authentication by downloading our whitepaper, "The journey to passwordless for healthcare." Learn how to enhance your clinical practice with cutting-edge security solutions that put patient care first.