July 15, 2020

Healthcare data… we all have it. But how do we secure it as the healthcare technology landscape changes? SailPoint’s own healthcare experts Ali Haughton and Amber Miles share more on how healthcare organizations should be thinking about security in a post-Covid world.

Video Transcript

Hannah Giles: Hello everyone and welcome back to Identity Talks. Today we are chatting with Ali Haughton the Senior Product Marketing Manager for Healthcare at SailPoint and Amber Miles our Engagement Manager with SailPointís Professional Services team. Today we’re going to be talking about healthcare so Amber, Ali thank you for joining us.

Ali Haughton: Hannah, how are you? and Amber, hi it’s been a long time, I haven’t seen you for a really long time my friend.

Amber Miles: I know, it’s been a while. Good to see you guys.

Hannah Giles: Yeah doing great and this is a topic on everyone’s mind. So really you both have been immersed in healthcare and identity for quite a while which is part of the reason we have you on today. And you know we really just want to get to the core of kind of how the healthcare industry is being reshaped by COVID-19 and how healthcare organizations are gonna think about identity moving forward? So Amber I have a question for you first which is, do you think that this shift and the way healthcare organizations think about identity will be permanent?

Amber Miles: I think that in some ways it will be. If we take a step back and look at what has transpired over the past several months, we saw a shift almost overnight where individuals who work what are considered traditional office jobs have been asked to do those jobs from home. And as time has carried on they’ve adjusted to a new normal and learn to do those jobs well from home. So I think that it’s natural after, after months of doing so some of these workers are just going to want to continue to do so. You know they’ve been doing it for a while, it’s convenient, it’s safe, it works, so why not? And I think that there is an opportunity for healthcare organizations to shift it the way that they do things but in doing so they’ll also have to shift it the way that they think about identities. They’ll need to ensure that the proper guardrails are in place for individuals doing work and accessing patient data from devices and networks that may not have originally been set up or intended for that purpose.

Hannah Giles: Ali I have a question for you now and really what do you see this, how is this shaping the future of identity for healthcare organizations?

Ali Haughton: So one of the challenges will be how to demonstrate compliance and data privacy. What a lot of people have not realized is the rules for HIPAA have not gone out the door. They still exist. The hospital is to do no harm but in that process that means to safeguard your information as well. So there is no doubt there will be a list of best practices but for many healthcare organizations it will be crucial to document what they did, how they did it, who requested what, what was requested, if access was approved and when? Additionally it’s also going to be super important that they can prove they removed access.

You know one other thing about governance and identity is you it is evolving and its fluid. We have more people using devices that they’ve never used before in the healthcare landscape. What is that going to look like, you know getting back to what Amber said it’s, it’s not going to go back to what it was. But what will the future be? I think that question is still open for debate but one of the things that we need to be secure about is that, that information for your records Hannah, mine or Amber’s or anyone else still remain safe. And I think a lot of folks are going to have to think about how they define what their identity management programs are.

Hannah Giles: Wow, big facts. Well, thank you so much for both of you for your time today. That was excellent information especially for our healthcare organizations who are scrambling and trying to figure out what their future you know technology landscape looks like and identity seems to be right at the center of that. So we appreciate your time today and for our viewers at home we look forward to seeing you again on Identity Talks really soon.

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