IN a late 2006 datamonitor survey of 100 hospitals in North American and Europe, 91 percent of hospital and IT directors said security of patient information was at the top of their list of concerns when implementing electronic health record systems. As healthcare organizations grow in staff and systems, so grow the danger and pain points of multiple passwords, as users take risky shortcuts or develop insecure passwords and IT staff spends time and resources resetting passwords. Single sign-on (SSO) solutions address the need for ease-of-use for busy clinicians who need to access patient data and increased security and efficiency for IT staff, said Christine Chang, healthcare technology analyst for Datamonitor. Uptake is still quite low in the market, noted Alaa Owaineh, enterprise security analyst at Datamonitor; the technology is still evolving and in many cases SSO is difficult to deploy and integrate. Still, healthcare organizations may finally be motivated to eliminate frustration and security risk that occurs on a daily basis.

THREE TRENDS TO WATCH 

Datamonitor’s Alaa Owaineh and Christine Chang highlight three trends to look for in 2008:

1. Managed Service: More and more, SSO will be deployed as a managed service, either outsourced or as a Web-based or appliance-based service.

2. SOA: Service Oriented Architecture, or SOA, offers an opportunity for using SSO more effectively because SOA allows new applications to be turned out easily.
3. Interoperability: Interoperability between EHR and financial systems is going to be key moving forward, allowing easier SSO integration – and can easily sink your budget.