Imprivata Explores Digital Transformation of Virginia Hospital

Imprivata is calling attention to some of the steps that hospitals had to take to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic. To that end, Chief Medical Officer Sean Kelley recently moderated a panel discussion with the IT team for the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters (CHKD) in Norfolk, Virginia. That talk included CHKD CMIO Dean Cauley and CTO and CISO Joseph Hooks.

In the talk, Hooks explained how the hospital was able to make a rapid switch to a remote work environment. CHKD went from 200 remote workers to 800 remote workers in a matter of weeks, and had to upgrade their infrastructure and licensing accordingly. He indicated that Imprivata was crucial in that regard, since the hospital was able to scale its use of Imprivata’s dual-factor authentication technology to grant easy access to clinicians while still protecting the personal information of individual patients.

Cauley, meanwhile, emphasized the importance of new tools, including the electronic prescribing of controlled substances (EPCS) and video conferencing platforms that allow doctors to provide better telehealth services. Together, those technologies allowed doctors to deliver quality care while minimizing the need for face-to-face contact, which in turn helped maintain social distancing and slow the spread of COVID-19.

Though they were able to upgrade their IT infrastructure relatively quickly, Cauley and Hooks noted that there were disruptions to other segments of their supply chain. For example, there was a shortage of personal protective equipment during the early stages of the pandemic.

Imprivata has urged healthcare providers to continue using biometric patient identification tools during the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that biometric scanners are more efficient and are generally easier to clean than conventional check-in measures like clipboards and paper. The company is the developer of the PatientSecure palm vein authentication solution, and is currently working with Microsoft to combine its OneSign Single Sign-on (SSO) offering with the latter’s Azure Active Directory.

CHKD indicated that SSO was an integral component of the organization’s new security setup.

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June 5, 2020 – by Eric Weiss