Imprivata Healthcare Innovation Award Finalists Series Spotlight on: Sanford Health

We are pleased to recognize our inaugural 2012 Healthcare Innovation Award finalists, including Catholic Health Partners, Johns Hopkins, Memorial Healthcare, MedCentral Health System, Mercy Health System and Sanford Health, for their innovative application of Imprivata solutions to improve clinical workflow and increase productivity and data security. We will be spotlighting these finalists on our blog.

Sanford Health is an integrated health system headquartered in Fargo, ND and Sioux Falls, SD and is now the largest rural, not-for-profit healthcare system in the nation with locations in 126 communities in eight states. Sanford Health includes 35 hospitals, 140 clinic locations and nearly 1,200 physicians in 70 specialty areas of medicine. With more than 25,000 employees, Sanford Health is the largest employer in North and South Dakota. In addition, Sanford Health is in the process of developing international clinics in Ireland, Ghana, Israel and Mexico.

The system is experiencing dynamic growth and currently has more than 7,000 OneSign licenses. As a long standing OneSign SSO user with GE Centricity, after Sanford Health acquired Meritcare, they made the switch to Epic.  The rollout of the Epic EHR system with OneSign was essentially a completely new implementation. During the deployment with Epic, Sanford decided to add fingerprint biometric identification at the same time not only for secure, easy access, but to position the health system for an Electronic Prescriptions for Controlled Substances (EPCS) rollout once Epic is ready.  Now once Epic rolls out EPCS, Sanford Health will be ahead of the curve.

Imprivata fingerprint biometric identification is currently being used to touch into the desktop and auto launch EPIC, GE Centricity and various other applications. Imprivata also added functionality to close all applications, except for Epic when a close function is chosen within an application, providing much tighter desktop security. By using the additional lock features, the Protected Health Information (PHI) is kept even more secure as the desktop will lock as soon as the user exits an application.  There is no delayed locking and PHI is fully protected, and when the user unlocks the desktop with a touch, the application re-launches.

The deployment of Imprivata solutions has resulted in not only time savings but faster EMR adoption within the health system. Imprivata remains an important part of the patient care environment at Sanford, and the health system continues to partner with Imprivata to address new and emerging healthcare IT security needs as Sanford continues to grow and evolve.