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Press Releases SENTILLION CEO TESTIFIES BEFORE CONGRESS ON VETERANS AFFAIRS DATA SECURITY ISSUE Robert Seliger Selected as Healthcare IT Representative to Discuss the Protection of Sensitive Patient Data ANDOVER, Mass. - June 21, 2006 - Sentillion, Inc., the leading provider of identity and access management (IAM) solutions for the always-on healthcare industry, today announced that its CEO and co-founder, Robert Seliger testified before the Subcommittee on Health of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. The Committee, spurred by a recent high-profile case in which the private data of more than 26 million veterans was stolen, has called a number of hearings to identify how to guard against existing-and future-security threats to personal information. Mr. Seliger, a twenty-six year veteran of the healthcare information technology field, was asked to speak about industry best practices for protecting sensitive personal information. As the sole representative of the healthcare IAM industry, Mr. Seliger urged the committee to consider the unique nature of the clinical environment when evaluating potential security measures. As offered in his testimony, he asserts that the "real security and privacy challenges that the healthcare industry faces are not attacks from outside, of which very few have been documented, but rather transgressions from within." The question is, rather, "How do we improve the security and privacy of patient information without impeding access to caregivers who need the information to care for patients?" When one considers that a traditional security measure may require a caregiver to log on and off a workstation as many as one hundred times per day (at one or two minutes per action) the process might consume hours of the caregiver's time. The threat for said caregiver to altogether avoid the process is very real-and very common. In instances where a security measure is ignored, compliance is often forfeited in favor of maintaining the clinician's focus, energy, and time on patient care. However, once treatment has been administered and the doctor/nurse leaves without logging off the workstation, the same patient's private data remains exposed to virtually any passerby, including a large pool of people such as non-approved healthcare workers, other patients, or guests. The above scenario, which was presented to the committee, was used to illustrate the vital need to deliver immediate, secure information access to caregivers. Armed with this capability, Mr. Seliger testified, "Physicians and nurses are more likely to access the information they need to make timely and informed decisions from a computer than by looking at paper records, asking a colleague, re-performing expensive tests, or making decisions without information that is available, but not used because electronic access is too slow or cumbersome. Security and privacy solutions that support the caregiver's workflow can result in safer, more effective, and less costly healthcare." Included in Mr. Seliger's quarter-century of healthcare experience are eight years as CEO and co-founder of Sentillion and eighteen years as senior R&D manager and distinguished scientist at the former Hewlett Packard Medical Products Group. He currently serves as the chair for the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) steering committee for Integration and Interoperability and as an advisor on standards uptake for the Pan-Canadian Electronic Health Record Standards Steering Committee. About Sentillion |
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