Media Alert: The Clooney Factor

Avoid security breaches, compliance nightmares and costly repercussions through Identity and Access Management

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - October 12, 2007 — Late Tuesday, several news sources reported that 40 staff members at the Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, NJ, were accused of accessing George Clooney's medical records without permission and leaking information to the media, a breach of federal law.

Union president Ann Twomey said in a statement: "While we believe that individuals need to be held accountable if they violated patient privacy, we also believe that the hospital had a responsibility to establish proper systems to protect patient privacy." Such a statement both acknowledges human fallibility and clearly establishes the need for identity and access management systems. The Clooney story may be mere celebrity news, but a real tragedy—a breach that causes more severe harm—escalates the need for identity-based security solutions across the board.

The market leader of innovative and affordable identity management technologies, Encentuate is a vocal advocate of both preventive as well as corrective solutions to secure a patient's private medical records without sacrificing ease-of-information access for caregivers.

To ensure access security and allow hospital administrators to verify that users are who they say they are, Encentuate offers strong authentication, single sign-on and graceful sign-off. Walk-away security ensures that machines lock down when the authorized users leave their workstations, so unauthorized individuals cannot view confidential patient information. If a security breach does occur due to human error or misconduct, customizable tracking across all enterprise end-points allows administrators to view who accessed what, when and from where, from inside or outside the corporate perimeter. If one user shares confidential records illegally, administration can directly address the individual breach, rather than implicating several suspected staff members.

The Clooney incident puts a spotlight on healthcare facilities' ability to guarantee a patient's right to privacy. Incidents such as this one drive awareness and fuel the immediate need to increase identity and access security.

Encentuate Media Contact: Susan Majerus, +1-970-301-4190, susanm@encentuate.com