Biometrics offers alternative to password entry

Abstract

For clinical pharmacist Cecily Carroll, logging in at a workstation in the pharmacy library at California Pacific Medical Center means gingerly placing her right index finger on a glowing red pad. The single motion by Carroll causes the workstation’s screen to display the security statement from parent Sutter Health. A single-click acknowledgment of the statement takes Carroll to the available applications, including the drug information resources and the clinical information system, which gives her access to medication orders, progress notes about patients, laboratory test results, pathology reports, and discharge notes. But when upstairs in the 21-bed medical–surgical intensive care unit, 10-bed coronary critical care unit, or 3 step-down units where she usually works, Carroll keys in her password rather than using a fingerprint reader. The difference in routine is not so much personal preference as Carroll’s reaction to what she called “a work in progress” at California Pacific Medical Center, which has four hospitals on three campuses in San Francisco.