Finding a balance between security and ease of use is a challenge most hospitals face. Saratoga Hospital in Saratoga, NY implemented an innovative biometric solution that ensures the hospital meets HIPAA and HITECH compliance requirements without slowing down caregivers.

In high traffic areas in particular, Gary Moon, the hospital’s information systems security analyst, says that account sharing used to be the norm. “People were sharing accounts for ease of use.  Every time they got on a new workstation, they’d log in to Windows and then log in to their applications,” he tells Inside Healthcare IT. “They’d leave everything open for someone else to hop on and get the information they’d need.”

Adopting a biometrics solution wasn’t in the hospital’s original plan, Moon admits.  However, after exploring other options, including a single sign-on solution for the hospital’s multiple systems, biometrics became the product of choice.

“When we looked at single sign-on a couple of years ago, we realized it was very expensive,” Moon says.  “The market hadn’t matured and both the market and the players in that market were very volatile. That made us a little shy of diving into single sign-on.”

However, some of the single sign-on solutions that Moon and his team explored included biometrics, which was attractive. “Biometrics offered its own ease of use that did a lot of what we were looking for in single sign-on without the need to buy into an all-encompassing package,” he explains.

Saratoga Hospital opted to invest in fingerprint scanners from Redwood City, CA-based DigitalPersona, Inc. and began piloting the solution in its emergency department in 2008.

Fingerprint scanners trigger an appropriate password on the backend. 

“I call it an effortless multiple sign-on.  We still have independent systems with independent passwords, but the users don’t have to worry about that. They put their finger down on the reader and that’s it,” Moon says.

Moon says that buy-in to the solution came early.  “The hospital holds a technology fair and during that, we show employees the latest technology and ask for their feedback.  The response to biometrics was overwhelmingly positive.  People were anxious to try it if it would create a situation where they didn’t have to remember to log in and out all the time.”

The hospital currently has 910 registered users out of a total user population of 1,900. “We’ve got about 1,500 licenses, which we’re steadily growing into.”

Moon says that the scanners are used throughout the hospital.  “We originally focused on clinical and high traffic areas. Now we’re rolling it out into offices where we think people would be better served to have the solution.”

Moon says that while the response to the fingerprint scanners has been overwhelmingly positive, early on there was some initial hesitation among some users.

 “Every once in a while, people would be concerned about giving us their fingerprint because they were concerned that it might be used in direct identification, similar to how law enforcement might use it,” he explains.

Moon and his team developed education talking points that alleviated those concerns.  “I explained that no, this system doesn’t work this way.  It basically creates a hash of light and dark areas and it can’t be used by law enforcement or any other system, just this one.  Once I explained that, people were okay with it.”

Another initial concern centered on infection control and again, education proved to be the key to putting worries to rest.  “The hospital recently upgraded their readers to ones that are wipeable.  We also distributed literature to our infection control specialist about the cleaning methods.”

Moon admits that while overall, implementation has gone very smoothly, there were some bumps along the way.

In the hospital’s busy emergency department setting, Moon planned to use DigitalPersona’s Pro Kiosk solution exclusively, but during the six-month pilot, the team learned some valuable lessons.  “We realized that one size didn’t fit all. There were a few users that had dedicated workstations, even in that busy environment. They needed their own profile and the kiosk product didn’t work as well in those situations.”

As a result, Moon learned early on that in going forward, it was important to understand users’ needs, a lesson that served him well when it came time for the hospital-wide rollout.

“We found we had to survey the use case of every workstation before we went ahead with biometrics at a particular location.  My advice is to recognize that even in a single area, not all solutions will work at every workstation.  You’ll have to identify the use of each workstation, even in an area where you may think they’re all the same.”

To do that, Moon and his team met with various departments in the hospital to learn about the specific needs of each user within the department, which also help set implementation priorities.  “We met with people in each department to learn about their workflow and that way, we were able to identify where we’d get the most bang for our buck.”

As the hospital looks at possibly implementing a single sign-on system down the road, Moon says he’s optimistic that the solution from DigitalPersona will integrate seamlessly into whatever system Saratoga chooses and provide an additional level of security.

“I think everything worked smoothly because the readers are agnostic to the back office software we use.  We can roll them out where necessary. Then when we’re ready to actually move to a single sign-on system, we hope to incorporate the biometric readers into that effort,” he explains.

One of the most visible benefits Moon has seen since adopting the fingerprint readers has been the increased detail in his reports.  “Every login on every workstation is visible and accessible. We can track log-ins through all the various systems users are logging into.”

“There’s a relationship between convenience and security and typically as you increase security, you decrease convenience,” Moon says. “You’re always looking for that balance point and this is one of those rare instances where as you increase security, you also increase convenience.”

Copyright 2011 Algonquin Professional Publishing, LLC