Streamlining workflows to create clinician efficiency with Identity

For healthcare organizations improving clinician efficiency affects patient outcomes, making it a necessity rather than a simple goal. Organizations are under immense pressure to streamline operations, enhance patient care, and maintain robust security measures. Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions have become criticalor achieving success on these objectives. In this post, we’ll explore the unique challenges that providers face and how IAM solutions can alleviate these challenges and drive efficiency.

Understanding the provider space

Provider organizations, particularly mid- to large-sized hospitals and health systems, operate in a highly complex ecosystem where efficiency and security are critical. Key decision makers must ensure seamless operations while upholding strict security standards. The challenge lies in overcoming operational bottlenecks created by siloed organizations, multiple logins, manual processes, and inefficient access to patient data.

The need for enhanced clinician efficiency

Clinician efficiency directly impacts patient outcomes and healthcare delivery as a whole. Let’s take a look at some of the key pain points and how they hinder the ability to deliver efficient care:

1. Manual processes: Reliance on manual processes for accessing systems or patient data consumes valuable time and can lead to errors.
   1. Time-consuming workflows: Manual entry of patient information, logging into multiple systems, and navigating through disparate applications are time-consuming tasks that divert clinicians’ attention away from delivering care.
   2. Paper-based systems: Many organizations still rely on paper-based systems for certain admin tasks.¹ This slows down processes and makes it challenging to keep track of information
2. Multiple logins/passwords and user management: Managing numerous logins with frequent password changes for different systems disrupts clinical workflows and poses security risks.
   1. Cognitive load: Clinicians often have to remember multiple usernames and passwords for the various systems within a tech stack. This increases cognitive load and can drive frequent password resets, disrupting  workflows and causing frustration.
   2. Inconsistent access: With different systems requiring separate logins, clinicians may struggle to access necessary information promptly, further delaying care.
   3. Security vs. convenience: Regularly changing passwords is a necessary security measure, but it can be inconvenient for clinicians who need quick and reliable access to systems. Forgotten passwords result in time-consuming reset protocols and increase demand on IT resources.
   4. Account lockouts: Repeated failed login attempts due to forgotten passwords can lead to account lockouts, preventing clinicians from accessing critical systems and data when needed.
3. Inefficient data access: Without streamlined access controls, clinicians face delays in accessing critical data.
   1. Fragmented data systems: Patient data is often stored across multiple systems that may or may not be strongly integrated into the EHR. This forces clinicians to navigate through interfaces — EHRs, population health platforms, care management tools, etc. — to piece together a comprehensive view of a patient’s medical history.
   2. Access delays: Delays in accessing patient information can impede timely decision-making and affect the quality of care provided. Efficient access controls are crucial for accessing data when it’s needed.
4. Onboarding and offboarding: Efficient onboarding and offboarding of clinicians is essential to maintaining continuity as employees join, move, or leave an organization. This is even more important in instances where joint ventures and federated access play a role.
   1. Timely provisioning: New clinicians need immediate access to the systems and data necessary for their roles. Delays in provisioning can prevent the ability to deliver care from day one.
   2. Security risks: Inefficient offboarding processes can leave former employees with access to sensitive information, posing massive security risks. This highlights the need to revoke promptly in these instances.

How IAM solutions can impact and improve efficiency

IAM solutions are pivotal in addressing these challenges by providing secure, seamless access to necessary resources and enhancing efficiency. Let’s take a look at some specific features and real-world examples of this transformation:

• Single sign-on (SSO): SSO eliminates the need for multiple logins by allowing clinicians to access all of their applications and workspaces with a single set of credentials. This saves time and reduces the cognitive load from remembering multiple logins and passwords. By deploying SSO, organizations can streamline their workflows while bolstering security. This only gets compounded when combined with tap-and-go functionality, which enables physicians to sign in and out of shared workstations with a simple badge tap.

  Example: Imagine a busy emergency department where time is critical. With SSO, clinicians can quickly access patients’ records, diagnostic tools, and communication platforms without the hassle of logging into each system separately. This streamlined workstream translates directly to improved patient care.
   

• Multi-factor authentication (MFA): MFA enhances security by requiring two or more authentication factors based on the context of access. This is particularly crucial for clinical workflows involving sensitive data, such as EPCS workflows.²

  Example: As mentioned above, during the prescription process for controlled substances, MFA ensures that only authorized clinicians can complete the process which reduces the risk of fraud and supports compliance with regulatory requirements, among other things.
   

• Governance: Governance strengthens the overall security posture of healthcare organizations while improving efficiency. By automating compliance and audit processes, it reduces the administrative burden on all parties, IT and clinicians alike.

  Example: Automated governance means access rights are regularly reviewed and updated, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access and helping ensure all employees have the right level of access at all times.
   

• Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC): RBAC assigns access based on a clinician’s role within the organization. This helps make sure that each clinician has the rights they need to perform their duties without unnecessary access to other systems. This is particularly vital in instances where clinicians are tasked with straddling the line between clinical and educational settings, such as within academic medical centers (AMCs).

  Example: In an AMC, RBAC enables medical students, residents, research fellows, and attending physicians to have distinct access levels, tailored to their specific needs and responsibilities — maintaining security and operational efficiency.
   

• Lifecycle management (LCM): Automating user provisioning and deprovisioning is crucial in environments with high staff turnover and frequent role changes. LCM facilitates seamless transitions so clinicians have immediate access to the tools they need from day one.

  Example: When a new clinician joins a hospital, features such as LCM within an IAM solution help ensure they are provisioned with the necessary rights based on their access group, significantly reducing the time to productivity. On the flip side, as employees leave the organization, the ability to automatically deprovision and bar access to critical systems strengthens an organization’s security.

The future of clinician efficiency

As the healthcare industry evolves and looks to improve efficiency, the integration of advanced IAM solutions will continue to be increasingly vital. The shift towards digital healthcare, telemedicine, and remote work necessitates robust and flexible IAM frameworks ] that can adapt to changing needs while maintaining security and privacy. 

By leveraging solutions like Okta Workforce Identity Cloud, providers can achieve these lofty goals. The ability to seamlessly access resources, coupled with enhanced security and automated workflows, enables healthcare organizations to deliver elevated patient care.

If you’re ready to get started with your organization's IAM journey, contact an Okta team member or schedule a demo today. For more information, check out our healthcare solutions.

These materials and any recommendations within are not legal, privacy, security, compliance, or business advice. These materials are intended for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the most current security, privacy, and legal developments nor all relevant issues. You are responsible for obtaining legal, security, privacy, compliance, or business advice from your own lawyer or other professional advisor and should not rely on the recommendations herein. Okta is not liable to you for any loss or damages that may result from your implementation of any recommendations in these materials. Okta makes no representations, warranties, or other assurances regarding the content of these materials.  Information regarding Okta's contractual assurances to its customers can be found at okta.com/agreements. 

References

1. https://www.talkehr.com/post/paper-forms-vs-electronic-records 
2. https://www.healthit.gov/sites/default/files/identitymanagementfinal.pdf