Single Sign-On Reduces Frustration and Saves Valuable Time​

We’ve since rolled out Imprivata OneSign to almost every person in our facilities and clinics. We have about 3,300 employees and a little over 3,000 licenses. Since Norman Regional was last featured, we’ve migrated the majority of our devices to VMware Horizon View with Forward Advantage’s help. We have Workstations on Wheels that use VMware Horizon View as well, along with our remote users.  

New applications are automatically integrated, so it’s much faster for everyone. It’s easy to get set up and get to work right away. I took over as the Admin of Imprivata OneSign four years ago, and most of the facilities were up and running. We had users in every facility on Imprivata OneSign, but then we totally rolled it out from one department to another. This was a big deal for departments like Radiology which had users who were all logging in with the same generic user account, and we knew that had to stop. Using Imprivata OneSign has made such a huge difference. Telling them they can just badge in and out was a big help with the transition. Now everyone just logs in as themselves.

We have approximately 150 applications that use Imprivata OneSign single sign-on. These applications are mainly clinical, but we do use it for some administrative applications as well. For instance, our security team has two or three different programs that they use single sign-on with. Human Resources uses it for several applications, such as applicant tracking. I tell people to let me know if there’s any application they have to log into. We can profile absolutely anything.

This past month, we pushed out the “fade to lock” feature that’s included with Imprivata OneSign. After a set period of inactivity (5 minutes), the screen will start to fade, and then it will lock after a total of 15 minutes of inactivity. This is a great feature that we just started taking advantage of.

The main benefits of Imprivata OneSign are still the same – time savings, faster access to applications, and reduced frustration associated with passwords. However, we did realize a major benefit when our area was hit by a severe tornado. The VMware Horizon View setup we have in place really helped us out. We were able to move the doctors’ offices onto other workstations. We set them up with a machine, and they were back to work very quickly. That was a huge timesaver.

We use Active Directory to serve single sign-on through VMware Horizon View. If an employee no longer works with us, or is inactive for a certain number of days, outside access is cut off because of VMware Horizon View. Single sign-on also encourages users to log out of their computers, because it’s so easy to log off and on again. When I worked in the clinical world, we all used the credentials of whoever logged in first in the morning. Now everyone badges in and out and works all day long under their own profile.

Clinicians don’t have to log on and launch MEDITECH every time they visit a patient, because we have VMware Horizon View. They log in at the patient’s bedside with the tap of a badge, and MEDITECH is already launched. In fact, their session picks up exactly where they left off, so they can get to work right away without having to remember a password. This allows for faster patient care.

Forward Advantage’s support has always been very fast and friendly. Everyone is extremely knowledgeable. If they don’t know an answer off the top of their head, they always know who to ask. Imprivata OneSign has always worked great and the support is great, so we’ve started looking at Imprivata Confirm ID for remote users through Forward Advantage.

At first, we found people to be a little resistant to badging out, but I explained the security aspect to get everyone on board. Eventually, departments were begging for us to give them single sign-on, but we didn’t have enough licenses at the time. They begged us until we purchased enough licensees. Some departments even took the expense out of their own budgets because they wanted it so badly.