Aultman Health Foundation selects Courion's Access Assurance Suite

Jul 8 2010

Courion® Corporation, leaders in access governance, provisioning and compliance, today announced that Aultman Health Foundation has selected Courion's Access Assurance Suite to improve compliance, enhance customer service and reduce costs by automating user provisioning and password management capabilities. Courion's solution will augment Aultman Health Foundation's existing risk management strategy by implementing strong security and data protection programs and ensuring only the right people have the right access to the right resources and are doing the right things.

“Aultman Health Foundation understands the role identity and access management solutions play within their overall risk management strategy and can rest assured that Courion's Access Assurance Suite will help manage and mitigate their compliance risk while aiding them in meeting their operational goals.”

Aultman Health Foundation is a multi-faceted and distributed organization that provides healthcare through Aultman Hospital, Stark County Ohio's largest hospital, with three outpatient facilities that include services such as immediate care, physical therapy, surgery and radiology; and Aultman Woodlawn, a nursing and rehabilitation facility. Additionally, AultCare is the foundation's locally-managed health insurance provider and currently offers insurance to approximately 430,000 participants. Aultman Health Foundation employs more than 5,000 employees.

Aultman Health Foundation needed to streamline its manual provisioning processes. In the face of mounting regulations such as HIPAA and PCI-DSS, manual errors had led to access compliance gaps, and lengthy onboarding (new employee access provisioning) was cutting into employee efficiency. Aultman also noticed access creep - employees gradually accumulating more access than needed. As the organization planned to tighten its security controls and implement a new password policy, Information Systems staff anticipated an uptick in password reset calls, which would further overwhelm an inefficient manual process.

Courion's Access Assurance Suite will allow Aultman Health Foundation to automate its identity and access management processes by eliminating manual password resets and manual creation, management and termination of user accounts. Courion's solution will be implemented in an organized three phase approach, with Phase 1, which is currently underway, focusing on self-service password reset and synchronization and automated provisioning for its 5,000 employees. Benefits will include reduced provisioning time from one week to day one "basic" provisioning; decreased number of password reset help desk calls; and increased compliance and enhanced security controls.

"Aultman was looking for a solution that would automate our provisioning processes, help us increase compliance and manage security risk, and dovetail with our existing infrastructure - all while demonstrating value and ROI quickly. Given our high demands, Courion's Access Assurance Suite was the natural choice for us," said Tom Mackey, CTO at Aultman Health Foundation.

Aultman Health Foundation was impressed by Courion's full suite of identity and access management and compliance offerings. Also instrumental in the decision was the solution's ability to seamlessly integrate with Cerner, a core business application used to manage clinical and financial outcomes, as well as the company's existing single sign-on (SSO) implementation.

"With the combination of extremely sensitive and proprietary patient data and the raft of industry regulations in healthcare, it is important for companies to take a holistic approach to managing user access," said Chris Sullivan, vice president of customer solutions at Courion. "Aultman Health Foundation understands the role identity and access management solutions play within their overall risk management strategy and can rest assured that Courion's Access Assurance Suite will help manage and mitigate their compliance risk while aiding them in meeting their operational goals."