A new virtual smartcard which promises to transform NHS efficiency and improve patient care is now available to NHS trusts and clinicians, says Jo Flynn, marketing manager at Isosec.
Isosec, the market-leading provider of security, authentication and workflow solutions to the NHS and healthcare sectors, has announced the launch and availability of the first Virtual Smartcard for NHS trusts and clinicians.
Virtual Smartcard by Isosec is already in use with the Barnsley Hospital NHS FT and available to NHS organisations with immediate effect.
“Isosec and the Virtual Smartcard has solved a huge problem for us and actually directly impacted our patient care,” said Tom Davidson, ICT director at Barnsley Hospital NHS FT.
The Isosec Virtual Smartcard addresses a multitude of inefficiencies the NHS is currently facing from managing physical smartcards. Issuing physical cards takes a long time and requires specialist printers for production. Common issues and inefficiencies around issuing physical cards arise when recruiting agency staff and cohorts of new doctors. Clinicians and staff have to travel around the trust to register for cards, so Virtual Smartcard is a big time saving for them.
“The Isosec Virtual Smartcard is a game changer for the NHS,” commented Marc Poulaud, CTO and founder at Isosec.
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Virtual Smartcard and Isosec are device agnostic. We work with Apple, Android and Windows tablets. Fingerprint Recognition is obviously only available on devices that are enabled. To use Fingerprint Recognition to authenticate Virtual Smartcard must first be registered.
In the end-to-end security context Virtual Smartcard is actually more secure than physical smartcards, as Virtual Smartcard leverages all the security of the physical card (Strong RA processes, strong encryption) but eradicates the security workarounds users can adopt with physical cards, such as loaning cards, leaving them in readers and using communal cards – which can potentially lead to security breaches and information governance problems.
Is there a clinical benefit?
Clinicians lose valuable time when they cannot access clinical systems due to a locked physical smartcard. If this happens in a remote location or in the middle of the night, for example, they have to wait until an RA manager is available to unlock the card for them. This could potentially be the next day, the IT office is likely to be further away from clinical buildings, and treatment can get delayed. Virtual Smartcard removes this barrier with the Self-Service Portal and Virtual RA so clinicians can continue treating patients in a timely manner.