Christus Health Reports Over $2.3 Million Saved After Implementing SSO

Physician dissatisfaction with electronic health records (EHRs) in the Meaningful Use era has been significant. For many physicians, EHRs and computerized provider order entry (CPOE) are among the largest, most dislocating changes in clinical practice and workflow in a generation. Physicians have expressed concerns over perceived usability, interruptions in clinical workflow and patient relationships, as well as the time added to an already heavy work volume. Superimposed on these challenges is the imperative for all care givers to maintain the highest possible security for protected health information through HIPAA compliance. It has been observed that what makes passwords effective – complexity and frequent change – also makes them hard to remember.

We estimate in our system that clinicians and physicians in particular were required to recall and periodically refresh from 8 to 20 or more passwords at the application level to access each, many requiring different user names and passwords. Other hospitals have stated their clinical users typically logged in to 8–10 or more applications. Time lost by clinicians navigating, entering multiple passwords and resetting them when forgotten is valuable time that competes with and diverts from their care of patients. We regarded implementation of single sign-on (SSO) as a relatively rapid and easy way to help facilitate our clinicians’ adoption and use of EHR technology, including CPOE and digital documentation.