Austrian hospitals get fingerprint biometrics

Austria’s biggest private hospital chain, the ‘Barmherzige Brüder’, is to begin using biometric fingerprinting to control access to IT systems. Once live, doctors and nurses will no longer have to remember a password to log onto the hospital information system (HIS).

The ‘Barmherzige Brüder’ (merciful brothers) run nine hospitals in Austria, all of which will be equipped with PC mice that include a biometric sensor on top. The hospital of Graz is already fully equipped. Eight more hospitals and another three nursing homes will follow during 2008.

The biometric solution is delivered by Siemens IT Solutions and Services. The company has integrated its ID Center software into the Citrix-based HIS, a local solution named “Patidok” provided by the Austrian company PCS from Klagenfurt.

For the initial registration, users have to place both index fingers on the sensor of the mouse. After that, they simply have to tap the sensor with one of the index fingers to get access to protected data or software.

“We have agreed not to talk about money, but all in all Siemens will install biometric sensors for around 3,500 employees in the different institutions”, said Siemens-spokeswoman Astrid Heinz to E-Health Europe. This makes it one of the first large scale biometric sensor projects in the healthcare industry of Germany or neighbouring German-speaking countries.

Siemens provides the algorithms for encryption and storage of fingerprint features, together with the necessary software for identity management and verification of access authorisations. Heinz stressed that the solution is available all over Europe and that it can be made compatible with different HIS from many different companies.

The news about the Austrian Siemens fingerprint ID project comes as European hospitals become increasingly aware of the need for improved access-control to clinical and administration systems.

A recent survey of the Wegweiser Institute which was commissioned by the German industry association BDI showed that around three out of four German hospitals are planning to invest more into security infrastructure, including access management, in 2008.

However, the challenge is to deliver security infrastructure and access control procedures that don’t dramatically slow access to key systems and data. Biometric sensors are promoted as providing an easier way to identify users.

But they do have drawbacks as well. Unlike with password systems, users need to have clean and naked fingers. This demand could lead to potentially dangerous delays in time-critical situations, especially in intensive care.

“To use our system with gloves on is not possible at the moment”, said Heinz. She stressed, that in order to avoid problems with dirty or injured fingers, every user can store two or more fingerprints from different fingers.

Further momentum for biometric solutions comes from the German smartcard project. After almost two years of negotiations, the German national office for data security in information technology (BSI) recently has accepted that qualified digital signatures can be initiated biometrically.

This is expected to substantially gear up electronic prescriptions, in particular, which some doctors in private practice have to sign more than 100 times a day. Industry is now producing smartcard readers with biometric sensors according to BSI-demands. They will probably be available for the official smartcard test regions in the middle of the year.