As one of Canada’s leading hospitals based in Toronto, North York General Hospital (NYGH), is known as a leader in patient and family-centered care, offering acute care, ambulance, and long-term health care across multiple location sites. Since serving the North Toronto community from 1968, the hospital is also home to 1,200 nursing students each year and continually a top choice for University of Toronto medical students and residents alike.
With such a significant medical campus and thousands of patients to care for each year comes significant IT needs. Appropriate security controls, ones that would give end-users full access to their own accounts and that would reduce the number of password-related calls coming into the help desk was paramount. Moreover, the hospital’s “putting patients first in everything we do” strategy means the hospital always needs to ensure that patient needs and expectations are met first and foremost.
Even with support and training for a multitude of end-users including physicians, nurses, and support staff, the hospital’s help desk incident tickets were being dominated with password reset requests. This led NYGH to ReACT, the self-service password reset and synchronization tool from ASPG, Inc. Chi-Cheng Chu, Manager of Information Services at North York General Hospital, explains: “We needed something to help us lower help desk calls and, most importantly, provide end-users with full control of their own accounts so that our staff could spend valuable time on helping patients.”
“We needed something to help us lower help desk calls and, most importantly, provide end-users with full control of their own accounts so that our staff could spend their valuable time on helping patients.”
A high volume of password-related reset calls can place a significant strain on an organization’s help desk. With each call costing time and money, and with hundreds of these types of calls coming into the help desk each month, these calls can place a financial strain on an organization’s operating costs. Since implementing ReACT, NYGH has enjoyed the significant cost-saving benefits that come from incorporating a self-service password-reset tool.
Although NYGH was already using a password reset tool prior to implementing ReACT, this proved unsuccessful as Chi Cheng explains; the solution “did not help our situation at all.” It is important for organizations to do their due diligence when considering password reset tools as not all of them are created equal. ReACT truly differentiates from the competition by delivering a rapid return on investment, provides custom reports and auditing, as well as a live events dashboard.
For many of us, visiting a hospital or accessing a hospital’s website for critical information can be a stressful ordeal. Forgetting a password can exacerbate an already nerve-wracking experience. Given the sensitive nature of hospital records and patient files, it is imperative that hospitals take their online security seriously. The legal ramifications of confidential patient data ending up in the wrong hands could be especially damaging to a hospital. ASPG believes it is far better to invest in your organization’s data security than suffer the expensive consequences later.
Since incorporating ReACT into their operations two years ago, NYGH has seen a significant improvement in corporate security controls, and help desk operations and efficiency.
“We like ReACT as it provides multiple ways for end-users to authenticate themselves. In addition, the end user registration process is clear and user-friendly. We know our end-users well and we select something our users will both use and really like.”
Challenge #1: Reduce the volume of password related calls to the Help Desk
Before implementing ReACT, redundant password-related reset requests would take up about 33% of the hospital’s help desk workload, causing distraction from the important patient and physician-focused work.
After incorporating ReACT, the help desk’s password-related calls were dramatically reduced by almost 90%, cut down from 33% to 4%, allowing the IT team to shift their focus onto more urgent matters and proactive maintenance. Additionally, hospital staff would also spend less time on system account issues and more time on patient-focused care.
Challenge #2: Provide end-users with full control over their own accounts.
By empowering users with access to their own accounts, the workload of password-related tasks was taken off the help desk so that they could focus on more urgent issues, and online users were given independence over their own accounts with multiple authentication features.
ReACT’s comprehensive range of authentication options includes image recognition, Google authentication, as well as email and SMS verification codes. Chi-Cheng also adds, “Additionally, as we are in Canada, we needed a tool that could integrate well with local mobile carriers so that the text message functions could work.” This is another important factor that organizations should consider when choosing a suitable password reset tool, particularly for international businesses that may have numerous locations.
Challenge #3: Incorporate software that is intuitive and easy to use for the everyday user.
An IT solution that is only understandable to a qualified IT technician is no solution. It was important for the password reset solution to be an intuitive, accessible solution that was simple and pleasing to use for the everyday user with minimal technical experience. Thanks to ReACT’s fully customizable interface, the system was able to be incorporated into NYGH’s existing website seamlessly.
Chi-Cheng explains, “When selecting a password reset tool, organizations should select something their users will really use, not just something IT staff like. A user friendly interface, clear and simple registration process, and minimal high-tech questions are some of the main things to consider.” Chi-Cheng also credits the clean registration process as one of his favorite features of ReACT.
Challenge #4: Follow through on the hospital’s “putting patients first” strategy.
In addition to alleviating some of the workload of the help desk staff, other members of the hospital’s staff could also spend less time on rudimentary account issues and more time on focused patient care. Notably, NYGH estimates that about 300 hours of staff time is saved per month due to incorporating ReACT. That is a significant improvement in staff efficiency and an impressive return on NYGH’s initial investment. Ultimately, ASPG’s software solution has allowed hospital staff to gain back valuable time to spend on patient care, which is the core of any hospital’s business.
Notably, NYGH estimates that about 300 hours of staff time is saved per month due to incorporating ReACT.
With a unique 24x7x365 approach to providing customer support around the clock any day of the year, NYGH also credits ASPG’s Technical Support team with assisting the IT team during the implementation process. ReACT is also a Microsoft certified solution that is able to both cooperate and supplement existing systems that are already in place. Data security remains at the heart of ReACT by allowing users to integrate the system with existing tools for reporting, tracking and auditing, combining together to create a comprehensive security system for your organization.
With support for a multitude of operation systems across the entire enterprise, including but not limited to: z/OS [RACF, ACF2, Top Secret], Active Directory, Novell/eDirectory, UNIX/Linux [AIX, HP-UX, Datatel], iSeries/AS400, JD-Edwards, Oracle/SQL, LDAP, Lawson, SAP, CAMS, WFM, Gmail, PeopleSoft, AdvantX, Office 365/Live@Edu, and more, ReACT is truly a customizable and innovative software solution for your business.
TRUSTED SOLUTIONS FROM ADVANCED SOFTWARE PRODUCTS GROUP, INC.
ASPG is an industry-leading software development company with IBM, Microsoft and GSA certifications. For nearly 30 years, they have been producing award-winning software for data centers and mainframes, specializing in data security, storage administration, and systems productivity, providing solutions for a majority of the GLOBAL 1000 data centers. For more information about ASPG and its system administration and security products, visit the ASPG website at www.aspg.com or contact ASPG at (800) 662-6090.
