Cambridge Memorial Hospital (CMH) staff is set to have full
access to critical hospital information systems anytime,
anywhere.
CMH is currently phasing in Role Oriented Access Management
System (ROAM) technology from Saint John, N.B.-based AnyWare Group with implementation to be
completed by October.
ROAM provides a secure communications infrastructure that
includes an integrated desktop portal and role based identity
management, according to the company. ROAM is essentially a
"ubiquitous" desktop and will be used by the entire hospital staff
of 1,200.
The new system will allow hospital workers access to information
on everything from administrative systems like accounts payable and
human resources to detailed and critical patient information.
It's necessary for staff to access the information via high
speed Internet, which CMH's manager of information technology Ed
Norwich said was a challenge for some staff to buy into.
"The challenge for us was making sure that people understood
that you should have high speed Internet," said Norwich. "Changing
doctor's thought processes around that took a bit of a challenge,
but we're getting there,"
The main reason CMH selected ROAM is accessibility, he said.
"We've gone through some significant transitions over the last
three years (including) upgraded (CMH) network infrastructure,"
said Norwich. "We built the infrastructure from ground up and that
was fine for us internally."
Although, it also meant that CMH needed to start looking at an
improved way of providing accessibility for users, he said.
"It was important for not only physicians but all staff and they
needed to address how they wanted them to use the network, as well
as access information for security purposes."
Security is one of the key benefits from ROAM which is always a
concern if someone is connecting in from outside the hospital,
according to AnyWare CEO Gerry Verner.
"The unique thing about (CMH) and what we were able to do with
ROAM is that it not only served the remote users but also all
internal users in the hospital," said Verner. "They all go through
the same process of authentication."
Verner added that ROAM would be the common desktop for all of
their users which solves two problems at once, access management
and making sure that remote users were secure.
It's also something that could be used in the event of a
pandemic such as SARS, which is an important factor to one of
their ROAM clients, North York General Hospital where SARS hit
especially hard.
"For example if they came in one day and said, 'No one can
report to work today because there's a flu pandemic,' they can
easily add 500 users in a day and access information systems from
home," he said.
Vernon noted that a future use of ROAM could be for emergency
responders such as fire and police services in the event of a
disaster.
"We definitely see that as a market," he said. "If you think
about a municipal government, they have their employees, but then
you also have the fire and police."
"So we see it as very much tying into the emergency response as
well."
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