News
Newcastle hospitals implement combined security and
access-management system
7 July 2008
Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has chosen
Imprivata OneSign to provide strong authentication and single sign-on (SSO)
for the Trust’s 11,000 clinical and administrative staff, improving
productivity and removing password management issues.
OneSign will also integrate with the Trust’s building-access systems
allowing them to create and enforce a single security policy for both IT
network and physical access.
As part of its substantial construction and modernisation project,
the Trust is implementing new building-access control and physical
security systems from Honeywell at its three sites across the city.
Working with partner BMS, Imprivata OneSign was selected for its ability
to implement an identity-management system that links to the physical
network and enforces security policy across the Trust’s computing
assets.
“The Trust was looking to consolidate its physical and network
security systems and reduce its management overhead. Before Imprivata,
each user would have carried around up to three separate smartcards in
order to gain access to IT and building resources. In turn, this meant
our helpdesk was also having to deal with large numbers of password
reset requests: about 55% of all calls through were password-related,”
explained Michael Mythen, acting deputy head of IM&T, Newcastle Upon
Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. “Using OneSign, staff will only
have to use one card for all their access needs with only one associated
password.”
Following a pilot phase in January and February 2008, the Trust is
began its roll-out of SSO and strong authentication with a new
application for the maternity department in March 2008, covering 350
users. “We expect to reduce the volume of password-reset requests by
around 90%, as well as improving staff productivity levels. This project
is proving to be popular so far with both the IT help-desk team and the
general user population,” continued Mythen.
The strong authentication factors to be used are combined in a single
card with both chip and pin and proximity functionality, so that once
users are authenticated, they will automatically be granted access to
the applications they are allowed to use. Further groups of employees
will join this system as more applications become enabled for SSO, with
the whole user population to be enrolled by the end of 2008.
Imprivata OneSign is fully integrated with both the National Health
Service smartcard and the Trust’s planned physical access solution from
Honeywell. By linking these systems together, the Trust can create and
apply one single policy across all its access points, whether these are
physical entrances or endpoints on the IT network. This single policy is
far easier for the Trust to manage, while it also means that the
organisation can build up a complete picture of user activity across
both physical and network resources.
“This deployment of SSO and strong authentication is one of the
largest in the UK health sector, and it has demonstrated how local needs
can be met using innovative approaches linked to the Connecting for
Health (CfH) national scheme. Reducing the number of credentials that
users have to remember, whether these are passwords for applications or
carrying multiple smartcards, makes staff more productive and cuts the
burden on the IT team that has to support these systems,” commented Omar
Hussain, CEO, Imprivata.
“Creating and enforcing a single security policy across all the
Trust’s assets means that management is simpler and auditing of access
is much easier. This implementation is a good demonstration of the value
that Imprivata can deliver to organisations in the UK health sector.”
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