N.J. Medical Center Uses LF Tags to Protect Patient Records

To access the hospital's clinical system or other applications, a nurse or physician walks up to a kiosk and holds an RFID-enabled employee badge near its interrogator. The device reads the badge's unique tag ID number, which is correlated in Encentuate's database with that employee's information, including the specific applications that person is authorized to access. A user interface pops up on the kiosk's screen, prompting the user to enter a password. Once the correct password is entered, the user is presented with all applications he or she has permission to use.

A user who needs to walk away while working on a kiosk—for example, a nurse who is called to attend a patient down the hall—does not have to sign out before leaving the station. If the Encentuate software remains idle for two minutes, it will lock up the kiosk and a screensaver will appear on the screen. Then, if the user returns to the kiosk and no one else has used it in the interim, that person needs only hold his or her badge near the reader, and the system will automatically restore the previous session exactly where the user left off. If, however, another person walks up to the kiosk instead, that individual must hold his or her employee badge near the interrogator, then enter a password when prompted to initiate a new session.

"It used to be that when the IT team introduced a security system, things such as accessing applications would become a lot more difficult for users," says E.K. Koh, Encentuate's VP of products. "Now, this makes it much easier for users."

In addition to providing secure access to applications within the hospital, Encentuate worked with EHMC to link the security system with the facility's virtual private network (VPN) secure remote access system. This enables doctors to log in via a Web browser from home or a private office to access the hospital's applications, and to still use the same password used on site (the remote access does not require an RFID-enabled badge, but users must key in their user name in addition to the password). Encentuate, which focuses primarily on the health-care market, has worked with other hospitals that also employ RFID to help secure their systems, though the company declines to specify how many.

According to Wilhelm, Encentuate has worked hard to meet the hospital's needs. "I find that they listen to what the institution has to say about what would make the product better," he states, "and so they are coming out with versions and releases that will take care of what I need. Whereas some of my concerns with the bigger [security] companies is that I was often told I would have to wait six months for a new release that would take care of the issue."