Identity Management for Health Professionals

As a result of growing economic pressures, collaborations and process orientation are rapidly gaining importance for hospitals. With organisation and software landscapes which have grown over time in line with specific professional groups and functions, the paradigm shift places high demands on integration. One of the key challenges in this context is the hospital-wide management of medical staff identities along patient processes. Effective identity management calls for technical means (e.g. for exchanging user data between applications), organisational definitions (e.g. HR processes for starts, departures and changes of hospital medical staff) and regulated responsibilities (e.g. for role definitions). The article shows that while the technical solutions do exist in practice, the necessary prerequisites are frequently missing where organisation and responsibility are concerned. The changes linked with meeting those prerequisites are likely to affect the work of medical staff and can encounter resistance. A very cautious approach is required to the apparently “technical” task of establishing a system of identity management. The article presents a procedure model which has been put to the test in practice. It ensures that responsibility and authority for identity management are successively installed in line with the specific circumstances that prevail in hospitals. Copyright Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2013