NEC Expands Identity and Access Management Offering for Healthcare

June 5, 2006
NEC and Fischer International form alliance to deliver single sign-on and patient data manager solutions

WASHINGTON - NEC Solutions (America), Inc., a premier provider of integrated solutions for the Connected Enterprise in North America, today announced TouchPass - Provisioning, which brings automated user identity management capabilities to healthcare IT environments and extends the benefits of NEC's TouchPass identity and access management solutions.

NEC's TouchPass - Provisioning is the result of a new partnership agreement between NEC Solutions America and Fischer International, security visionaries who provide the industry's only programming-free provisioning solution designed for rapid and easy integration into complex IT environments. The announcement was issued at this week's 2006 Gartner IT Security Summit in Washington, D.C., at which the new TouchPass - Provisioning solution will be unveiled at Booth # 111.

NEC's TouchPass - Provisioning incorporates Fischer Identity Suite's provisioning, password management, and compliance technologies to deliver an automated solution for user account management and compliance by centralizing the management of user identities for networks, databases and applications. Healthcare practitioners are faced with fast-paced work environments where patient care is priority. Removing tedious and time consuming tasks, such as application and network privilege requests and waiting for account approvals, allows healthcare practitioners to be more productive and focused on patient care. From an IT administrative perspective, TouchPass - Provisioning is a secure, efficient and cost-effective way to manage user privileges across any healthcare organization.

TouchPass is the only provisioning solution that requires no programming or scripting for implementation, administration or business changes. It's also the only solution that brings identity management to mobile devices, and provides PDA-based support for provisioning approvals, password management, data lookup, contact management and calendar synchronization with Lotus(R) Notes(R) or Microsoft(R) Exchange. Now managers on the go can approve application activation or termination requests without delaying the process.

"NEC's partnership with Fisher International represents a significant advance for our integrated solutions for healthcare's complex IT environments," said Lauryn Jones, general manager, Healthcare Solutions Division of NEC Solutions America. "TouchPass - Provisioning provides the healthcare industry with identity and access management that can be deployed rapidly and automates the labor intensive elements, thereby easing the IT burden. This performance improvement directly translates into cost savings and frees critical IT resources to be redirected to other pressing initiatives."

"Provisioning solutions can provide the automation and security needed to ensure that healthcare staff have timely access to the information they need, and can eliminate the cost of thousands of hours spent to manually manage user base," said Barry Runyon, Healthcare Research Director, Gartner, Inc. "The key to obtaining the maximum value from a provisioning solution is to automate provisioning and compliance for as many systems as is practical. With each added system or user population, the healthcare provider reaps the benefits, such as cost reduction, improved security and compliance, access to information and patient safety."