Did you hear about the “improbable comeback” of Oracle Team USA in the America’s Cup race this summer? The cup defender, Oracle, was racing against the challenger, Emirates Team New Zealand. This year the competition required 19 races to determine a winner, and Oracle Team USA accomplished eight consecutive race wins to rally from a 1-8 deficit and beat the New Zealand challenger 9-8.
Technology changes the game
The America’s Cup race tradition began in 1851 with 65- to 90- foot yachts. The first competition consisted of 15 yachts sailing for the trophy and a monetary prize. Material technology has changed the yacht performance and design dramatically from 1851 to 2013. The Oracle defender was an AC72 wing-sail catamaran with an average race speed of 30.55 knots, or 35 miles per hour. The yacht crew included a skipper, a tactician, a strategist, a wing trimmer, a jib trimmer, an off-side trimmer, and five grinders who wore protective gear including helmets. Putting a yacht in the water for the America’s Cup this year cost over $100 million, so only 3 challenger teams joined the race.
One of the reasons Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison can support his racing team is because of the successful Oracle business, which is also high-tech. Oracle as a company has developed skill and expertise in the ever-important area of Identity Analytics. Identity Analytics is critical in safe-guarding private and sensitive information in a complex informatics system, whether for a big corporation or a practice EHR.
Nuts and bolts of Identity Analytics
Here’s how Identity Analytics works: Every user in a data environment has an identity. The User Identity is tied to the user’s defined role in the environment. For example, a nephrologist in a practice will have a User Identity attached to his or her name and will also have “privileges” allowing access to parts of the EHR based on a defined role as a physician within the practice. A Physician User might have broad access to most of the patient clinical data in the EHR, but some very sensitive patient data may have restricted access except to specific individuals within the group. “Identity Data” for a data environment might include User Identities, User Roles, User Entitlements/Restrictions, and User Training.
The management of access and security within the data environment, such as an EHR, involves the use of Identity data for Identity Management, Identity Governance, and Identity Analytics. Users and, therefore, active Identities within a data environment change regularly. Individuals may leave the practice or change roles within the practice, so Identity Management is a dynamic process. Each data environment must have governance rules for user access, so that user activity is trackable and measurable.
Defending patient privacy
Identity Analytics collects and processes Identity data in real time to ensure the security of private data within the environment. Identity Analytics includes audits that show activity by user to insure security and permissions are functioning as expected. Identity Analytics can inform the business about security exposure risks, people behaviors, efficiency, and productivity. In healthcare, with the use of Patient Portals supported by Meaningful Use, Identity Analytics will also be part of verifying Patient Identity, access to data, and portal usage. Identity Analytics systems will be working overtime to manage security in the ever-expanding use of mobile devices with applications across a wide geography.
Do you remember the days of the paper charts in your practice? I can remember people in my nephrology practice roaming about the clinic in search of a patient chart. Not only were the charts sometimes hard to locate, but there was no way to tell with certainty where they had been and who had looked at them. Identity Authentication, Identity Management, Identity Governance, and Identity Analytics provide infinitely more control and security compared to the paper days. Just like the America’s Cup yachts, which have transitioned from the polite gentleman races of 1851 to the high-speed, technology-fueled, fiberglass yachts of 2013, we are never going back.
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