Guest Blog Post (Part 3 of a 3 part series)
By David Ting, CTO, Imprivata
The Ponemon Institute recently conducted a survey (full survey available here) to understand, from the view of IT and clinical leaders, the impact that single sign-on has on the healthcare industry. The results were fascinating. A clear majority of the 486 respondents said that single sign-on (SSO) significantly provides significant cost savings for hospitals, time savings for clinicians, and overall increased security and efficiency in healthcare organizations. Combining these benefits with the clinician productivity and security enhancements of VMware View “desktops to go” can be transformational for healthcare.
- Time Savings/Cost Savings: According to the survey, single sign-on enables the average hospital to save each clinician 8 minutes per day logging into applications – resulting in cost savings of $1.7 million dollars per year (for all clinicians). And, with Imprivata OneSign® Single Sign-On, hospitals can actually save double that – 15 minutes per day (per clinician) and approximately $3.2 million dollars each year (for all clinicians).
- Increased Security: 70% of all respondents said that single sign-on increases the security of user access to patient records. Increased security mitigates the potential of data breaches and lost patient health information, which on average costs healthcare organizations more than $1 million per year.
- Efficiency: Surveyed customers said that the #1 reason for using Imprivata OneSign is to increase clinician satisfaction – which increases overall clinician performance and efficiency. Because single sign-on improves clinician workflows and reduces helpdesk calls for IT departments, significant time and cost savings are gained.
In addition to the benefits that single sign-on delivers for healthcare organizations and individuals, it also impacts several crucial outcomes:
- Achieving Meaningful Use Incentives: With increased clinician satisfaction and productivity, comes increased EMR adoption – clinicians can now easily access their applications without wasting time and energy on passwords. This enables hospitals to demonstrate Meaningful Use of EMRs – resulting in gaining some of the $6 billion dollar MU incentives that are available to healthcare organizations.
- Improved Patient Outcomes: With single sign-on, clinicians can spend more quality time on patient care. And, with increased security, patients aren’t at risk for losing their private health information.
There is no question as to whether single sign-on is effective in advancing healthcare, but how effective it can be. Implementing a proven single sign-on solution, like Imprivata OneSign, is a simple means to an achievable end. Giving clinicians back 15 minutes of their lost day is proven to result in happier clinicians, more efficient hospitals and better patient care. When combined with the clinician productivity and security enhancements from VMware View “desktops to go”, the two together – VMware View and Imprivata OneSign- truly better the delivery of healthcare.
Bio: Named one of Infoworld's Top 25 CTOs of 2006, David Ting, Founder and CTO, Imprivata has more than 20 years of experience in developing advanced imaging software and systems for high security, high-availability systems. David has been involved in a number of start-up ventures including Lexidata, Inc., and Delphax Systems, now a division of Xerox. He holds eight patents and has several patents pending.
