A Medical Device Daily

Siemens Healthcare (Malvern, Pennsylvania) has entered a partnership enabling it to offer the OneSign platform for strong authentication, enterprise single sign-on (ESSO) and physical/logical convergence from Imprivata (Lexington, Massachusetts) to its customer base.

Users of solutions such as Soarian Portal, a web-based portal providing secure access, will be able to integrate OneSign into their Siemens and non-Siemens application environments.

OneSign is described as an identity and access management platform that helps organizations enforce secure and compliant employee access to networks and applications. According to a recent national survey conducted by Imprivata, 26% of respondents log into applications 20 to 50 times per day, while another 5% log in more than 50 times per day.

Luis Castillo, senior VP, health services for Siemens Healthcare, said, "Our customers will now be able to streamline user access and benefit from the proven and reliable expertise of Imprivata and its OneSign solution."

Imprivata OneSign provides support for organizations that need to demonstrate compliance with key sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. OneSign automates password policy implementation and creates unique, strong passwords behind the scenes to ensure patient data privacy. It also performs password changes automatically on behalf of users, ensuring stricter security and eliminating security breaches associated with passwords written on paper.

The OneSign Application Profile Generator enables single sign-on and password change for all applications, without writing logon scripts, building custom connectors or modifying applications.

In other agreements:

• NextGen Healthcare Information Systems (Horsham, Pennsylvania), a provider of ambulatory healthcare information systems and connectivity solutions, reported that the Illinois Primary Health Care Association (IPHCA; Springfield), an association representing community health centers, has selected NextGen's suite of enterprise software solutions.

The products selected include NextGen EMR, NextGen EPM (Enterprise Practice Management) and the NextMD patient portal, as well as Quality Systems' integrated EDR (electronic dental record) and hardware. IPHCA will deploy NextGen Healthcare's NextGuard Data Protection Services, which provides off-site, web-based data archiving, retention and disaster recovery preparedness services.

The NextGen technology will be implemented at five IPHCA-affiliated health centers during the initial implementation and up to 25 additional centers in later phases.

NextGen develops computer-based practice management and EMR systems for group practices and healthcare systems.

IPHCA is a non-profit trade association formed in 1982 serving as Illinois's sole primary care association.

NextGen Healthcare Information Systems is a subsidiary of Quality Systems (Irvine, California).

• MediVoice (White Plains, New York), which says it provides the world's first mobile voice-activation solution for e-health and e-prescribing, reported a partnership with VisionTree (San Diego), a provider of web-based, health record management and provider communication systems, to integrate and market its mobile voice-activation solution with the VisionTree Optimal Care (VTOC) system.

MediVoice's software will enable users to access the SureScripts network for e-prescribing and e-health management. It allows healthcare professionals to voice-activate electronic prescriptions, electronic medical records, and a variety of e-health services.

VisionTree's Healthcare Solutions consist of VTOC, VisionTree MOC Online and VisionTree Clinical Trials for web-based data collection, workflow, documentation and quality of care. VisionTree says that its customer base consists of U.S. academic and community healthcare organizations.

• Premier Purchasing Partners (Charlotte, North Carolina) reported new agreements for conventional film, dry media and printers awarded to Agfa Healthcare (Greenville, South Carolina) and FujiFilm Medical Systems USA (Stamford, Connecticut).

This new Premier category combines two former categories: conventional (also called "wet") and dry (also called "laser") film categories as well as corresponding printing/imaging systems.

The 36-month agreements, effective Sept. 1, are available to acute-care and continuum-of-care members of the Premier alliance.