Imprivata, the digital identity company for life-and mission-critical industries,  announced the launch of the Imprivata Digital Identity Maturity Model and Digital Identity Maturity Assessment. These free tools are the first of their kind, custom-built to amplify the voice of clinicians and end-users in the decision-making process for a healthcare organization’s digital identity strategy.

To help organizations assess and benchmark the maturity of their current strategy, Imprivata offers its Digital Identity Maturity Assessment. This self-service, interactive tool enables clinical leadership, IT, and security teams to quickly assess the effectiveness of their digital identity program based on current-state tools and processes. The output is a customized report that considers user outcomes, security, and compliance in alignment with the maturity model, with actionable insights to simultaneously drive improvements across all areas.

“It’s essential for Healthcare IT leaders to partner with clinicians when designing and implementing new solutions. Otherwise, these initiatives risk falling short in addressing the greatest needs, or, creating challenges that overshadow the benefits intended,” said Teresa Niblett, DNP, TidalHealth Chief Nursing Informatics Officer. “An assessment that incorporates the clinician’s experience in a digital identity strategy will lead to more useful, effective, and productive implementations, which strengthens the partnership between clinicians and IT teams, and ultimately improves outcomes.”

Due to the high value of sensitive patient records and the life-threatening impact on patient care, healthcare organizations are a major target for bad actors. U.S. federal records reveal that from 2010-2022, 385 million patient records were exposed due to healthcare data breaches, with the majority a result of hacking or IT incidents. Manyhealthcare delivery organizations (HDOs) find that insufficient assessment of cybersecurity risks is the most significant barrier to achieving a strong security posture.

Imprivata aims to change that by helping organizations prioritize strategies focused on securing the user (the digital identity) and their credentials, not the traditional network perimeter. The Imprivata Digital Identity Maturity Model provides organizations with a guide to establishing a comprehensive digital identity program that simultaneously optimizes security, compliance, and user access. Tied closely to the Imprivata Digital Identity Framework, each phase of the model maps to the governance and administration, identity management, authorization, and access and authentication functions needed to achieve a unified strategy.

"Healthcare IT and security teams are under enormous pressure to evade external and internal threats while also implementing new technologies and supporting evolving care delivery models with ever-diminishing resources,” said Wes Wright, Imprivata Chief Technology Officer. “At the same time, clinicians can’t wait for access to the resources they need to provide patient care. For example, if a patient comes into the ER and the doctor can’t access his or her records, there’s a potential life-critical outcome. Our maturity model and assessment remove the intimidation of implementing, or optimizing, a digital identity strategy that improves security and compliance while enabling clinical staff to better serve patients.”

By offering an actionable roadmap, organizations can advance through the phases to:

• Enhance access efficiency: End-users access a myriad of applications from countless devices and locations. This access must be secure, yet quick, or they’ll find workarounds such as credential sharing or leaving shared workstations unlocked. Organizations with a high level of digital identity maturity have implemented solutions that get technology out of the way so clinicians and end-users can do their jobs.
• Secure critical systems and data: With the end of perimeter security, due to a rise in remote and dispersed workforces, organizations are increasingly at risk from cloud app and mobile intrusions. Unprepared organizations are likely to rely on ad hoc, manual, and siloed solutions for controlling and managing these threat vectors –and will experience high-security risks as a result. A strong digital identity strategy is the only way to secure critical systems and data across mixed ecosystems, including legacy, modern, and cloud applications, through automated access reviews and provisioning, and lifecycle management.
• Ensure compliance: Industry and government standards exist to protect patient privacy and PHI, which require multifactor authentication, access control, audits, and more. Monitoring access with the ability to swiftly remediate is critical to managing risk and reducing regulatory fines.