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Boston Software Systems Enables Biometric Authentication With CPOE at Health Alliance of Cincinnati/Christ Hospital &Amp; University Hospital

Posted on: Monday, 13 March 2006, 12:00 CST

Boston Software Systems(TM), a leader in workflow automation technology to the healthcare market, announced today that The Christ Hospital and The University Hospital, both part of The Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, have integrated Boston WorkStation(TM) with the Novell Modular Authentication Service (NMAS) to achieve biometric authentication compliance with the Ohio Board of Pharmacy Positive Identification regulations. This solution is integral to their implementation of a Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE). This system can now notify the Hospitals' pharmacies in print and via email if anyone fails biometric authentication and uses the secondary authentication of a password.

The Health Alliance is an integrated healthcare delivery system located in Cincinnati, Ohio, that includes The Christ Hospital, The University Hospital, The St. Luke Hospitals, The Jewish Hospital, The Fort Hamilton Hospital and the physicians of Alliance Primary Care. For nearly 200 years, the Health Alliance Hospitals have grown to become leaders in medical excellence by continuing to plan and innovate for the future. For the past ten years, Christ Hospital has been awarded Cincinnati's Most Preferred hospital (NRC). Both Christ and University Hospitals have been named as some of America's Best Hospitals by U.S. News and World Report.

"The CPOE initiative is just one example of the Hospitals' forward-thinking approach toward procedural improvements, compliance and patient safety," said Steve Cohen, executive vice president of Boston Software Systems. "Boston WorkStation enables workflow efficiency through automation and strengthens the critical biometric authentication process. This integration with Novell and the CPOE solution validates the benefits that Boston WorkStation can provide to application providers in the healthcare industry."

The Ohio State Board of Pharmacy requires all organizations that use computerized medication ordering applications to comply with their positive identification regulations. Boston WorkStation captures order events on the Hospitals' Computerized Physician Order Entry system and alerts the user to automatically authenticate through the biometric process. The use of biometric fingerprint readers will ensure that any individual involved in dispensing, administering or prescribing drugs is securely authenticated to the CPOE system. The Hospitals have rolled this system out to 1,200 workstations, 50 mobile carts and have enrolled 1,000 members.

"Our CPOE deployment is a key patient safety and quality initiative for our organization. The ongoing effort to deploy CPOE at our facilities beyond the initial rollout continues and BWS will be used in that deployment," states Susan Abla, RN, Health Alliance manager responsible for CPOE deployment.

Steve Cohen, executive vice president of Boston Software Systems, stated "The use of biometrics for authentication provides the Health Alliance Hospitals with strong levels of security and improved accessibility to its systems for authorized users. BWS is bridging the gap between two off-the-shelf solutions."

"Due to requirements by the Ohio Board of Pharmacy, the Health Alliance was faced with significant obstacles in implementing our CPOE Project. While Novell is able to bring their inherently strong Identity Management products to the table, this alone would not solve the biometric integration issue we faced with the disparate systems. Boston Software's WorkStation product is able to bridge the gap and integrate our clinical system and the workstation. Now, any time a request is made in the IDX Lastword system that deals with medication orders, Boston WorkStation will capture the request, call Novell's NMAS product to biometrically authenticate the requestor and produce and store all audit information related to the transaction, " said Jim McIntosh, Health Alliance I.T. manager responsible for technical development and deployment.

About Boston WorkStation

Boston WorkStation is a workflow automation and integration technology that provides an environment for on-demand process innovation and development. Boston WorkStation allows healthcare organizations to dynamically respond to changing business and compliance requirements by automating common tasks, creating complex processes, automating interaction with Web sites, or integrating new applications, systems and devices.

About Boston Software Systems

Boston Software Systems is the leading standard for workflow automation and system integration software, enabling healthcare organizations to streamline complex business processes and improve productivity. Hundreds of healthcare organizations worldwide respond to regulatory and business initiatives by using Boston WorkStation technology to automate and improve processes throughout their facilities. Boston Software Systems' customers include HCA-Midwest, Stanford Medical Center, Charleston Area Medical Center, Lutheran Health Network and Tenet Healthcare. Boston Software Systems partners with leading application and system vendors such as McKesson, Siemens, Quovadx, Orion International and WebMD. For more information, please visit the Company's Web site at www.bostonworkstation.com or call 866.653.5105.

Boston Software Systems and Boston WorkStation are trademarks of Boston Software Systems, Inc. Novell is a registered trademark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. *Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

 Contact: Boston Software Systems Margaret Mayer 978-525-4831 margaretm@bossoft.com  Schwartz Communications Davida Dinerman/Courtney Smith 781-684-0770 bossoft@schwartz-pr.com

SOURCE: Boston Software Systems

Source: MARKET WIRE

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