DigitalPersona’s Fingerprint Readers To Enhance Access Security For Children’s Clinics In Southern Arizona

The new system improves workflow efficiency and increases patient data security

DigitalPersona, Inc., a global provider of authentication and endpoint protection solutions, recently announced Children's Clinics for Rehabilitative Services (Children's Clinics) has deployed DigitalPersona® Pro data protection and access security software and U.are.U® Fingerprint Readers to enhance the rollout of its new electronic health records (EHR) system. Using fingerprint biometrics, Children's Clinics has eliminated the need for employees and contract healthcare providers to remember passwords to access applications and sensitive patient information. This new system improves workflow efficiency, increases patient data security and significantly reduces IT helpdesk requests for lost or forgotten passwords.

With more than 25 specialty clinics, primary care and therapy services, Children's Clinics offers Southern Arizona's families a wide range of healthcare services to meet the health care needs of their children. The organization was transitioning to NextGen Ambulatory EHR from years of utilising paper charts. Children's Clinics was challenged with managing login credentials and needed a solution to help streamline the login process to improve workflow. More than 40 percent of the clinic's staff are part-time contract providers who only work in the clinic a couple of times a month. Because contactors only use the systems when they are at the clinic, passwords could easily be forgotten. Time and resources would be wasted recovering and reissuing passwords, causing frustration for both providers and patients.

"As we rolled out our new EHR system, it was important for us to make the transition easy for our providers who had to learn the new system. Our providers were already frustrated with having to learn another EHR system so we wanted the login process to be as fast and as simple as possible," said William Mayo, information systems supervisor, Children's Clinics. "Using DigitalPersona Pro and U.are.U Fingerprint Readers allows our providers to log into our EHR system without the hassle of remembering their password. User acceptance has been positive because employees can quickly and easily access their applications from any exam room PC with just their finger."

"The finger print readers have been the best part of the whole EHR roll out. I love it," said Dr. Sydney Rice, Medical Director, Children's Clinics. "Implementation went smoothly and our providers quickly became fans. It is wonderful to avoid yet another username and password."

By integrating DigitalPersona Pro and U.are.U Fingerprint Readers with the rollout of its EHR system, Children's Clinics was able to significantly speed up the login process required to access the applications throughout the organization. DigitalPersona Pro's kiosk feature has helped to streamline workflow processes by eliminating the need to constantly re-enter strong passwords required for exam room PCs. Since many employees are involved in a patients visit, employees can log out of the EHR in the exam room PC and the next employee can continue the exam where the previous employee left off. The solution helps address compliance with industry regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, by strengthening authentication in ways that doctors, nurses and clinical staff find easy to use. Children's Clinics staff can instantly access a broad set of applications OWA email, Exchange email, Ramsoft PACS, other community EHR systems, and information, including health records, radiology images and email.

DigitalPersona Pro is a centrally-managed suite of security applications that protects business information and systems against unauthorized access. It offers disk encryption, single sign-on across a broad set of applications and strong authentication using fingerprint biometrics, smart cards and tokens. With DigitalPersona Pro, hospitals, clinics and other companies can use Active Directory to configure and deploy security policies using the familiar approach of Group Policy Objects.

"DigitalPersona solutions help companies address the latest HIPAA and HITECH regulations as well as streamline workflow processes," said Jim Fulton, vice president of marketing, DigitalPersona, Inc. "This gives healthcare organizations, such as Children's Clinics, the security they need while actually increasing employee efficiency and overall productivity."