This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Daniel Johnston, MRes, RN, Director Clinical Operations International at Imprivata, discusses how mobile devices can improve clinical care and why getting security right is essential for protecting data, systems, and patients.
Mobile devices have become an important part of modern clinical care, giving clinicians greater flexibility to work at the point of care. But as their use expands, healthcare organisations also need to ensure these devices are secure, available, and easy for clinicians to access without adding friction to already demanding workflows.
Making a difference in healthcare
While the portability and ease of use of mobile devices have brought many benefits to healthcare delivery, they also pose challenges, both in terms of security and the practical issues around managing battery life.
They can enable a clinician to attend to a patient at point of care in a busy Emergency Department replacing trolleys, workstations on wheels or even pen and paper, in an environment that is all too often difficult to access and manoeuvre across a crowded area.
However, the same mobile devices may introduce security challenges because they change hands frequently and, in some organisations, multiple users may share a generic device PIN or application account. Smaller than traditional PCs and laptops, using long passwords can be fiddly to key in, which can also result in users adopting insecure workarounds for speed of access.
Managing devices ensures availability
It is essential that these mobile devices are secured to protect systems and applications, from cyber threats, as well as tracking who is accessing the data within the clinical environment, both for information governance and patient safety.
Another challenge with mobile devices is managing battery life to ensure optimum use. We all know how frustrating it can be to pick up your own device at home, only to find that the battery has not been charged.
Some healthcare organisations that have already solved this issue with mobile devices successfully managed and used. Clinicians simply ‘tap and go’ to log in before their shift. Built-in timeouts ensure that sessions are logged out and that devices are digitally sanitised. In addition, charging stations are available to support continuous use, with batteries available to support ‘hot swaps’, maintaining the user’s session data without having to log in again.
Secure workflows improve efficiency
One of the most important things about security is that it should protect users and systems without creating unnecessary barriers to work. This is particularly critical in a healthcare environment where clinicians are often working under pressure in busy departments.
For this reason, secure workflows using mobile devices need to be designed with the user in mind.
Identity is central to security
Security is a multi-layered strategy of defences and mitigations, of which identity is a crucial and critical part. In the healthcare environment the identity of a user has real clinical value in cybersecurity and efficiency, access and capability, and clinical governance and accountability
Strong user identities are an effective way of protecting applications from the risks of cyber threats. In addition, providing an easy, fast way for a clinician to prove identity and access healthcare applications helps to improve efficiencies.
IT departments can work with clinicians initially to identify which applications they are most likely to access. They can configure identity and access around a user’s role and department, helping clinicians move efficiently between the applications they need. This also meets the requirements for clinical governance. The logins and timings are recorded for audit purposes, helping to ensure that the right people have access to the right levels of authority.
Future developments benefit patients
Investment in mobile devices over recent years has been huge, overtaking that for PCs and laptops. Mobile applications are also being used to support more healthcare workflows.
When security and the accessibility come together, mobile devices can support a variety of innovative use cases that improve the experience of patients and staff at the point of care. One particular example that I’ve seen repeated around the globe in UK, Norway and Australia is the concept of the ‘silent hospital’.
The idea is that silent wards aim to reduce unnecessary noise while maintaining patient safety. They use technology to replace non-essential audible alarms and call bells with digital workflows that notify the right staff member directly.
Research has shown that in neo-natal departments, for example, the number of healthcare devices used for monitoring, and the noise that they make, can increase patient stress and anxiety.
It’s truly exciting to see the level of innovation being driven by mobile devices, across different countries and environments, to the benefit of both patients and staff. These examples also show that mobile device security and management are key to designing a successful digital transformation.
Daniel Johnston, MRes, RN, Director Clinical Operations International, at Imprivata is a practicing nurse with over two decades of experience in the UK and US.
