Health IT security company Imprivata has unveiled a new solution that allows healthcare providers to quickly and safely access clinical devices.
Instead of having to manually enter their username and password every time they utilize a device, Imprivata Mobile Device Access lets clinicians tap their badge to a mobile device, then single sign-on into their applications.
“Everything is moving to mobile in healthcare,” Imprivata CTO Wes Wright said in a phone interview.
More and more, hospitals and health systems have their providers share mobile devices. But it’s time-consuming for these users to have to log in and log out of said tools.
“Before our product came along, you couldn’t gracefully change users,” Wright added. With Imprivata MDA, “as you badge in and badge out, we’re switching users with that operating system so you don’t have to.”
The solution works with mobile devices using the Android operating system. Wright noted that the Lexington, Massachusetts company is working to bring the capability to the Apple operating system.
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A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Imprivata MDA also integrates with Imprivata OneSign, a single sign-on solution and virtual desktop platform.
In addition to speeding up the user transferring process, Wright said the new solution brings a security benefit to customers. Because mobile devices are frequently passed between parties in the healthcare setting, and there’s often no way of knowing where cybersecurity issues begin. For instance, let’s say nurse A doesn’t sign out of a device but hands it over to nurse B. Nurse B could then do something nefarious, but it would look like nurse A was responsible.
Though Wright only began his role at Imprivata last month, he said the impetus for debuting the tool likely came from customers wishing for the capability to more quickly switch users on devices.
The Massachusetts company is currently selling MDA, and Wright noted a few beta sites are using it right now.
Photo: roshi11, Getty Images
