Security plays an important role in healthcare organizations’ day-to-day operations. However, though protection is the main function of security, it is not the only way security can contribute to the organization. As the needs and goals of today’s healthcare organizations change, the security department has the opportunity to transform from a siloed operation to a department aligned with core organizational goals.

This type of transformation requires certain steps to ensure both the efficiency of the process and ultimately the success of expanding security’s role within their healthcare organization.

Understand Organizational Strategies

The first step in security’s transformation is to understand the organizational strategies with which security must align. This requires identifying the departments whose input will be valuable to this understanding, identify internal and external stakeholders, understand challenges and write a goal statement for each area and stakeholder. These assessments are performed using surveys or face-to-face interviews and research across the organization, approaching the process on a departmental level as well as taking a top-down approach.

Set Measurable Goals

The goal statements that result from understanding organizational strategies should include what needs to be accomplished for each stakeholder, and these goals must be concrete and measurable. For example, if while meeting with HR they mention that it takes three weeks to on-board one new medical staff member, a measurable goal would be to reduce this process from three weeks to one day.

Leveraging Technology to Meet Your Goals

Once goal statements have been created, this is where security has an opportunity to really shine within the organization by identifying technologies and processes that can meet the needs, solve the challenges and achieve the goals uncovered during the initial discovery processes.

Self-Service Portal

A good self-service portal is easy to use with automation that notifies the appropriate people when a request is sent, allows approvers to easily review tasks and notifies alternate individuals if an approver does not respond within a specific amount of time. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a portal must allow for easy reporting and provide detailed audit trails.

By implementing a robust self-service portal, organizations can get rid of paper requests, making information easy to track and report and providing a detailed audit trail for security, operations and compliance. Not only do portals make the process easier for an organization’s employees, contractors and vendors, they also make it easier for security to do their job as well.

The portal’s automated approval process sends an email request to the appropriate individual, who can easily approve or deny it by clicking a link within that message. This automatic provisioning capability saves time and effort – and the cost associated with both.

Security Intelligence

Typical security intelligence consists of data gathering, reporting and dashboards, behavioral modeling and predictive analysis. These solutions provide organizations with valuable knowledge in three main areas: risk, process delays and data.

Measuring the organization’s tolerance for risk can help determine appropriate controls to mitigate or avoid risk altogether. A closer look at delays in processes will likely uncover a need to automate time-consuming, labor-intensive and error-prone process. Data analysis provides organizations with valuable security and business insights, as well as situational awareness that enables the organization to take proactive measures related to potential risks.

Knowledge should drive decision-making processes, and the greater knowledge security intelligence delivers enables better-informed decisions for security and the organization as a whole.

Physical Security and Identity Access Management (PIAM)

Physical Identity and Access Management (PIAM) solutions sit at the center of security process automation, providing the best route to achieving organizations’ security and operational goals. The ability to increase efficiency and effectiveness of various processes with automation can be crucial to demonstrating security’s value to the organization.

PIAM solutions consolidate all the rules and policies that govern a healthcare organization and incorporate them into automated processes. These solutions connect previously disparate security, IT and other systems to automate key processes and workflows to optimize security operations, centralize control and enable compliance with regulatory mandates in real time.

With a centralized PIAM system in place, organizations can easily and efficiently manage the lifecycle of an identity from request through approval and on-boarding for every individual who has a reason to be on the premises. By replacing multi-step manual tasks with automation, organizations can start and finish approval processes in less than a day, rather than weeks.

Conclusion

By understanding organizational goals, developing relationships with other departments and leveraging identity management technology, security can build a business case for its transformation into a valued partner in the organization.

Click here to learn how Quantum Secure’s PIAM solution for healthcare facilities – SAFE for Healthcare – provides the greatest opportunity for security to become a valuable strategic leader in your healthcare organization.

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