On April 21st, the HIT Policy Committee Certification/Adoption Workgroup held a meeting to discuss Electronic Health Record (EHR) usability.…

By combining the benefits of roaming desktops with the simplicity of No Click Access delivered by Imprivata OneSign, clinicians can now access Citrix XenDesktop or XenApp with the tap of a badge or swipe of a fingerprint - enabling clinicians to dedicate more of their time with their patients and less time with the computer.…

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.…

Healthcare has the reputation of being highly resistant to change, that paper based systems are the best solution and that clinicians will simply not use any replacement. Why else would a hospital have to prove that they are meaningfully using new technology in order to receive the HITECH funding? Couldn’t we just trust them? So who’d have thunk it that in a survey of 477 IT professionals across multiple industries, it’s healthcare that are leading the way in the deployment of desktop virtualization!…

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.…

I often have conversations with customers about the level of effort that is required to support OneSign once it is deployed. We usually talk about the resources that are required to work on testing new application profiles or changes to existing profiles, but if you back up one level, you will see the X factor.…

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.…

Following the announcement that NHS Scotland had selected Imprivata to provide single sign-on for all of its health workers across Scotland, the Scottish Government has published an update to their e-health strategy for 2011-2017.…

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.…

The highlight of today was undoubtedly the customer panel in the session Healthcare and the Journey to the Cloud- State of the Industry.…

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.…

Many agencies that I’ve spoken to are not aware of the Advanced Authentication requirements of the FBI CJIS Security Policy 5.6.2.2 and are therefore not aware that they may be in breach of this requirement. This video will quickly enable you to find out whether you may be in breach and how Imprivata can put you back in compliance.…

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. …

Day 2 is now in full swing at VMworld 2011. We had a very busy Day 1 yesterday. While the show attendance was clearly impacted by Irene, it sure feels like there are 15,000+ VMworld attendees here in sunny Vegas.…

I’m extremely excited about our participation in this year’s show particularly the opportunity to demonstrate the results of our collaboration and integration with some of our partners. Imprivata is working in conjunction with VMware, Teradici, Dell, and VCE to showcase our joint solutions, which showcase VMware View serving up virtual desktops,…

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...…

We’re about to hit the virtual road out to San Francisco for VMworld 2010 next week, and are excited for the many activities and conversations that are lined up for our team at the event. If you’re going to the event, stop by booth #441 for a chat about securing user access in virtual desktop environments, or a demo of the integration of VMware View and Imprivata OneSign. We’d love to share ideas, perspectives and experiences onsite! I thought I’d call out some things you may want to check out as you navigate through the clouds of people milling around the various sessions, booths and labs within the Moscone Center...…

I am currently at the Insight 2009 Annual Conference in Orlando, where 1,200-1,400 attendees are converging to learn and build relationships centered on their McKesson healthcare IT systems. Users are hearing details of new product enhancements and integrations, learning best practices and engaging in valuable peer discussions they can take back to their organizations. Overall, there seem to be two overarching themes that are driving discussions, both in sessions and in the hallways...…

Happy New Year everyone. Unfortunately for all of us, we enter 2009 facing the reality of an economic recession that affects every industry. Layoffs are rampant, budgets are slashed and businesses are scrambling to weather the economic storm. Faced with these hard realities, it's a good time to regroup and rethink our next steps as we prepare for the eventual upturn.…

This week I was part of Network World's second annual real-life scary security stories podcast, a panel hosted by Keith Shaw that told the tales of some frightful security happenings over the past year. There were some amazing examples of breaches of data, corporate espionage and simple access and authentication mis-steps, of which I added a few anecdotes from actual conversations I've had over the past year. [to protect the innocent, actual names were not used]…