The NHS IT Security Specialists
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Implement Single Sign-On
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The Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been providing patient centred healthcare to communities in the North East of England and beyond for over 250 years. One of the largest NHS Trusts in the UK, delivering services from three major sites, the Trust is recognised nationally as a centre of excellence.
The Trust is currently undergoing a major building and reorganisation project which will see the relocation of all acute hospital services to two new sites to bring hospital services together to improve the quality of patient care.
As part of the building transformation project the Trust is implementing new building access control and physical security systems from Honeywell at its sites across the city.
Working with its partner, BMS, the Trust chose the Single Sign-On (SSO) solution from Imprivata 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.
Richard Oliver, IT Security Manager at the Trust said, “We chose BMS because they are Imprivata accredited and we had already developed an excellent working relationship with the Company over a number of years. We have found that BMS are much more than an IT supplier, they are a partner. I trust what they tell me to be factual and not hype, and their technical staff are exceptional”
The Business Challenge
Across the Trust, both clinical and non-clinical staff require access to confidential information as part of their daily activities. Due to the sensitive nature of the data, employees were issued user names and passwords for the applications they were authorised to access.
Remembering multiple passwords for numerous applications proved problematic and staff would resort to writing down the log-ins to remember them or would forget the password and then be locked out of applications. Also, each user had to carry up to three separate smart cards in order to gain access to IT and building resources.
The IT Helpdesk had to deal with large numbers of password reset requests; about 55 per cent of all calls to the Helpdesk were password related.
“The Trust was looking to consolidate its physical and network security Systems, to achieve ‘joined up computing’ and to reduce its management overhead”, explained Richard Oliver.
The Trust wanted to improve productivity and remove a range of password issues for the 11,000 clinical and administrative staff. It was imperative that the system would integrate with the Trust’s new building access systems and strengthen overall security.
The Solution
Imprivata OneSign is an access and identity management solution which provides strong Authentication support across all applications, local and national, Single Sign-On and integration for physical security systems. Key features include:
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Single Log-on for users to log into all approved applications
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Replaces multiple passwords and provides a centrally managed user log-on which works with ALL applications — legacy, web apps/gui's, novell & client/server apps
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Provides a single consolidated user identity where IT can approve or deny network access depending upon users physical location, role and/or employee status.
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Lower Help Desk Costs
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Increased User productivity
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 all the applications that they are allowed to use.
Following a pilot phase in early 2008, the Trust began its roll-out of SSO and strong authentication with a new application for women’s services, with access given to PAS, maternity, Labs and X-ray systems as well as local databases, covering 500 users.
During the later stages of 2008 the solution was rolled out across various departments including Finance HR and Supplies and it is now anticipated that by the 3rd quarter of 2009 all staff members will be using smart cards for single sign-on. By June 2009, 9,000 staff have been issued with new cards, 10,000+ staff are registered onto the spine, 2,000+ staff are using SSO via smartcard and over 20 applications are accessible via Single Sign-On.
The Benefits
"The 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 linking to the Connecting for Health national scheme," said Tina Tsoukatos, Managing Director of BMS.
Richard Oliver commented, “We have reduced the volume of password reset requests by around 40 percent and anticipate that this will continue to increase until rollout is completed, and we have also improved staff productivity levels. This project is proving to be popular so far with both the IT help-desk team and the general user population,” said Richard Oliver.
“Staff will now only have to use one card for all their access needs using only one password, saving time and increasing staff productivity, whilst at the same time improving our overall security."
Richard went on to say "The level of assistance we have received from BMS in the implementation of the solution has been incredible. The knowledge and skills of the engineer were fantastic and when we hit difficulties or issues which had not been encountered in other locations, due to the way we wanted to use the product, the BMS engineer always found the way to resolve the problem. He researched the issue, found alternatives where needed and provided advice and a resolution wherever possible. BMS always go much more than the extra mile and I have no hesitation in recommending them.”
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