This whitepaper describes why purpose-built, fully integrated identity & access management solutions are key to secure and efficient clinical workflows. Learn the essentials about identity access governance challenges and identity management solutions, including:
- Pain points
- Why a healthcare-focused identity access management strategy is important
- How identity access management is central to workflow efficiency
- Benefits of a single-solution approach versus point solutions
- Key requirements for clinical access governance solutions
The importance of efficient clinical workflows
While clinical workflow is intrinsically tied to the quality of healthcare, an expanding and complex ecosystem of devices, applications, evolving delivery options, and data security issues present challenges to achieving the Quadruple Aim of healthcare. This includes enhancing patient experience, improving population health, reducing costs, and improving the work life of healthcare providers. An IT and security strategy driven by a holistic, integrated identity, governance, authorization, and access management solution purpose-built for healthcare is integral to meeting these goals.
Pain points
With an increasing number of data breaches, healthcare providers need user-friendly solutions that boost security without disrupting clinical workflows. Too often, clinicians are subjected to manual, time-consuming access-granting processes. This can lead to burnout and may even contribute to negative patient outcomes. Although many security solutions are available, few seamlessly integrate identity access management into healthcare delivery workflows.
Healthcare-focused identity & access management systems
In this day and age, healthcare providers often have to authenticate access to multiple applications several times a day. Although a robust identity & access management system is a necessity, inefficient and insufficient access control can lead to a breakdown in security. An integrated solution that restricts access to critical applications, recognizes access needs by individual and role, and tightly and holistically integrates with existing health IT leads to improved clinical workflows, better security, and a seamless patient experience.
Access and identity management with SSO
Cumbersome processes can interrupt clinical workflows and diminish the quality of patient care. Single sign-on (SSO) solutions reduce the number of discrete system and application authentications. Access and identity management solutions with SSO are a powerful means of improving workflow efficiency by reducing the number of sign-ons, task switching, and physician burnout, while also providing audit and de-provisioning functions.
Single access versus point solutions
Due to different features and upgrade schedules, multiple point solutions put a burden on IT and users by forcing them to learn how to use these features and adapt to new capabilities. The Annals of Family Medicine estimates nearly half of a physician’s workday is consumed by clinical documentation, including time spent accessing a variety of health IT applications. Employing a single identity, governance, authorization, and access management platform boosts security while reducing overhead and physician burnout.
Selecting a well-integrated access governance solution
The complexity of existing healthcare informatics and confusion over potential solutions often prevents healthcare IT organizations from remedying existing access problems. Knowing what to look for in an enterprise identity access management solution is the first step in selecting the best product to fit your requirements. It’s critical to choose a vendor who can address evolving patient security, cloud migration, and other new technologies and access methods.
Download the whitepaper to learn more about how to improve workflow efficiencies securely.
