Surge in procurement of data security solutions

Published: 13-Mar-2012

Single sign-on technology adopted by trusts across the UK


More than 100 NHS trusts across the UK, including the whole of Scotland, are now using single sign-on solutions from Imprivata.

The latest figures from the company show a surge in the number of health organisations improving data security by implementing the OneSign system. These include three trusts in Northern Ireland, the entire NHS in Scotland, and 91 trusts in England.

Omar Hussain, president and chief executive of Imprivata, said: “As NHS hospitals face mounting pressure to improve clinical productivity and meet strict budget demands, regulation requirements around data protection and security also continue to impact IT decision making. Enabling fast and secure access to patient data has therefore become a key priority, particularly as trusts work to meet demands set out by the Information Governance Toolkit and other local initiatives such as the Better Health, Better Care pledge in Scotland.”

Commenting on its countrywide adoption of the technology, Ronnie Monaghan, head of the e-Health programme at NHS Fife, added: “NHS Scotland is committed to ensuring the highest levels of data security while enabling all employees to work as efficiently as possible to deliver high quality patient care. Imprivata OneSign can be seamlessly integrated with our existing IT systems at NHS boards across Scotland, which will prove significant for improving access and usage of key clinical systems for providing care on a national scale.”

It was Scotland’s embracing of the system that led to its take-up at health boards in Northern Ireland. Darren Henderson, ICT services manager at the South Eastern Trust, said: “After seeing Scotland’s successful procurement and rollout process, we wanted to take advantage of the same economy of scale and as such have increased the total number of user licences by more than 600% to serve two additional trusts. Working this way is more economical and also means that the trusts can easily share best practices for deployment and ongoing use – a huge benefit for both staff and patients.”

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