Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust wins HTN Award

For the roll out of Imprivata Single Sign On technology

We are delighted to report that Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust has won the HTN Excellence in Project Management award.

The Trust implemented Imprivata OneSign SSO for 3,000 users/4,000 devices in just 4 weeks - the fastest roll-out of a project of this size, worldwide. Clinicians saved 4.5 minutes per login, and the Trust was able to utilise shared mobile devices securely, saving considerable costs.

Here are the details of the winning entry…

The Challenge

Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust (SWBHNT) is an acute and community trust. It has two main hospitals, primary care practices, around 7,000 employees, and, a new hospital under construction.

As part of its digital transformation programme, the Trust was implementing a new Electronic Patient Record system. During pre go-live testing slow login times were identified as a potential problem, with the Emergency Department being the worst hit. The use of roaming profiles further complicated matters.

In order to solve the issue, the project team at SWBHNT needed to find a single sign on (SSO) solution with the main criteria being that it must authenticate users against Active Directory in under 10 seconds. In addition, it should log the user into the new EHR application and have a remote deployment option. Ideally the new system would also provide SSO for other clinical applications.

The solution

Imprivata OneSign Single Sign On was selected as it met all the criteria and was a trusted solution within the NHS. In addition, Imprivata had a good relationship with the vendor of the new EHR system.

How it works

The clinician approaches the workstation or device, taps on the card reader to unlock, the desktop unlocks with the EHR application loaded and logged in automatically. The clinician records their activity, taps their card to lock, and the desktop is locked again. Sensitive patient information is secured, and the clinician doesn’t need to remember complex passwords or wait for lengthy login procedures.

The Deployment

A Plan, Do, Check, Act methodology was adopted by the project team.

Deployment and user adoption were two critical phases of the project management and key to the project success. The team utilised both automated and in-person software rollout processes. Three teams of IT engineers completed the software installs. Any that did not work immediately were dealt with by a subject matter expert (SME) engineer. At end of each day experiences and learnings were shared, so that the installing IT engineers, in time, became much faster and were able to deal with any anomalies.

In parallel to the software installation, users needed to register. Those that were confident with tech were able to Self-Register, and often helped others to register too. In addition, the team ran pop-up sessions at the same time as training for the new EHR system, showing people how easy it was to use the new ‘Tap & Go’ solution, and how much quicker it made the login process. Drop-In sessions were set up in the canteen and areas of high footfall. In-reach sessions where Business Relationship Managers visited wards meant that they also reached those hard to get to staff, often working night shifts. This approach made it easier for users to ask questions and receive support and encouragement.

Targets were set to ensure that installations and user registrations stayed on track and were reported on at each project meeting.

As word spread about how fast the new system was, demand grew. RFID tags were left at workstations so that staff could set themselves up without needing to physically go to IT to get a tag. The benefit of getting many more people registered quickly far outweighed the small cost of the tags.

After the Go-Live date the project team continued to support users and provide troubleshooting services for 4 weeks, then closed down and moved to ‘business as usual’ operations. A key element of the project management was to utilise resources during the deployment that would also be available after Go-Live. In this way, knowledge transfer was achieved with little or no overhead.

The Benefits

Improved security and data governance

The No Click Access to systems and two factor authentication has increased security ensuring only trusted users can gain access to clinical applications, improving audit trails and data governance.

Improving patient outcomes

Access to real-time data has transformed the way clinicians are using systems. Clinical appointments are spent focusing on patient care, rather than wrestling with technology. With real-time data clinicians are able to make informed decisions without delays, improving patient outcomes. Clinicians working in community and primary care are able to remotely access the system and proactively plan next steps in the patients’ care plans.

Increased productivity

Since implementing Imprivata, significant amounts of time have been saved per shift. Login times have been reduced from 5 minutes down to 20 seconds per login, and that has been further reduced to 3 seconds if the clinician’s earlier login is still valid on the terminal. So far, this is saving 20 days of clinicians time over a 28 day period, and could be increased further as more people adopt the system.

In busy areas, clinicians can now use any device rather than holding on to the one that they have logged into. As clinicians now only need to remember a code which is simpler than a complex password, further time is saved as passwords do not expire.

Cost avoidance

Devices can now be shared by users securely, meaning that the Trust does not need to work on a 1:1 ratio of devices to clinicians on a shift. This is saving significant amounts of budget that can be redirected to other areas.

Feedback from frontline clinicians

“It is now much faster to log in, I can be logged into our EPR in under 30 seconds whereas before it took a lot longer” AMU Nurse

“Being able to login to the system so quickly means I am able to update the patient records more frequently in between patients.” ED Doctor

View the awards video here: https://vimeo.com/759838062?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=101128743