Further Enhancing Clinical Workflows with IGEL, Imprivata and Citrix

With key technologies for healthcare, Imprivata and IGEL have offered integrated solutions aimed at enabling secure, rapid, and productive work for healthcare clinicians, physicians, and nursing staff.  Both companies recently celebrated twenty years and IGEL’s partnership with Imprivata spans more than a decade with many successful customers around the globe who have benefited from adopting SSO+VDI with IGEL OS-powered thin clients.  This is one example of how the integration has worked for many years.

In recent years, the shift towards thin client endpoints in healthcare (and away from Windows) has been accelerated by many market factors with security being one of the most common (as healthcare has been a primary target for ransomware attacks), followed by a rapid acceleration towards the cloud.  Here are some of the top reasons IGEL has documented based on customer feedback.

With this shift towards a more secure endpoint operating system that is easier to manage and designed to optimize the end user experience, there has been growing customer demand to support additional Imprivata workflows on thin clients that were traditionally only available on Windows endpoint devices.  For example, in 2018, Imprivata released support for Citrix Virtual Apps on Linux.  In 2020, IGEL worked with Imprivata to add the “Single Application Kiosk” [often referred to as Epic Only] feature available as of IGEL OS 11.04.100 and higher.

At HIMSS 2022, IGEL is announcing official support for the Imprivata “Persistent App” feature available with the OneSign 7.8 Hotfix 1 release. For Imprivata and Epic customers, this is often referred to as the “Epic Multi-App” workflow, which has been the most widely deployed configuration on Windows shared kiosk workstations.  Specifically, OneSign 7.8 Hotfix 1, anticipated to be available in the next few weeks, will include an update to the Imprivata ProveID Embedded (PIE) agent to support this very popular workflow on IGEL OS-powered thin clients running version 11.06.120 or higher.

If you are attending the HIMSS22 conference in Orlando, Florida, please stop by the IGEL Ready Partner Pavilion – Booth # 5443 to see a live demo of this new feature.

For those not able to attend, here’s a short demo of the new Persistent App feature: How to provide secure endpoint, single sign on access in Healthcare

What is Persistent App and why is this important?

Persistent App is a “Fast User Switching” clinical workflow used on shared workstations where the main electronic medical record (EMR) application is delivered virtually via technologies like Citrix.  For HIPAA security compliance, access to the patient information in the EMR is restricted to authorized users (i.e. doctors, nurses) who must authenticate as themselves each time they use the application.  Imprivata has a long history of offering single sign-on into applications once a user has identified themselves via a primary authentication.  The primary authentication is tied to their company domain identity (ex: Active Directory) and made very convenient by using an ID badge or fingerprint.  This is often referred to as a “tap and go” experience.  The user taps their badge to access the computer, their identity is confirmed, and then their application credentials are automatically provided, and the user is logged into the application.

Shared workstations are widely used in healthcare settings where multiple users access the same machine at different times during the day while providing patient care.  To save time for the users when accessing the EMR, the Persistent App feature was developed to keep the virtually delivered Citrix app from being disconnected or closed while a different user is accessing the workstation.  Applications like Epic Hyperspace have an authentication API that Imprivata supports that is used to quickly switch users within the EMR as they authenticate to the Imprivata agent on the endpoint.  Here is a diagram of the workflow and how it will work on IGEL OS.

As healthcare customers continue to see the benefits of using a lightweight, more secure, easier to manage endpoint OS, they want to maintain this popular functionality while not sacrificing a great user experience for their healthcare workers.  IGEL OS has proven itself as a great option for healthcare organizations who benefit from massive cost savings by repurposing existing devices.

This popular functionality, now supported on IGEL OS, serves as yet another example of how Imprivata and IGEL constantly strive to deliver a better, more productive user experience within healthcare.  This strong level of technology integration will continue to serve our joint healthcare customers going forward with the common goal of always enabling clinicians and healthcare staff to achieve the best possible patient outcomes.