Location-Based Virtual Desktop Provisioning for Healthcare
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In healthcare environments, clinicians face delays due to cumbersome authentication processes and time-consuming re-authentication requirements when moving between locations, which disrupts their workflow and access to patient data.
Innovation Solution
A location-based system that uses real-time location services (RTLS) to anticipate and provision user sessions across devices, allowing seamless access to patient data by predicting user locations and authenticating credentials based on location-specific security policies, thereby reducing the need for repeated authentication.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If authentication requirements are strengthened to satisfy security policies and regulatory requirements, then security and compliance are improved, but authentication time and workflow disruption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs authentication actions in advance by establishing a mobile device as the authenticated identity before the clinician needs to access resources. The location-based system proactively determines when re-authentication is needed based on predicted location changes, allowing authentication to be prepared ahead of time rather than reacted to at the moment of need.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors location data and uses this feedback to dynamically adjust authentication requirements. When location changes are detected or predicted, the system provides feedback about whether re-authentication is necessary, allowing clinicians to understand when security protocols require additional verification and when they don't.
2Reliability
If clinicians are required to re-authenticate at every location change, then security compliance is improved, but productivity and workflow efficiency deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different authentication quality levels to different locations and situations. Instead of uniform re-authentication requirements, the system determines local security policies based on the specific location context, allowing relaxed authentication in low-risk areas while maintaining strict security in high-risk areas.
Solution Approach 2:
The authentication requirements become dynamic rather than static. The system continuously adjusts authentication policies based on real-time location data, movement patterns, and contextual factors, allowing authentication to adapt to the changing workflow needs of clinicians while maintaining security.
3Productivity
If authentication policies are relaxed to reduce re-authentication requirements, then workflow efficiency is improved, but security and compliance risks increase
Solution Approach 1:
The location-based system acts as an intermediary between security policies and authentication requirements. It translates security compliance needs into location-aware authentication decisions, mediating between the need for security and the need for workflow efficiency by determining exactly when re-authentication is necessary based on location context.
4Measurement precision
If the system monitors and tracks user locations continuously, then location-based authentication accuracy is improved, but system complexity and data processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies location monitoring at the appropriate level of granularity rather than continuously at maximum precision. It monitors location changes only when necessary to determine authentication requirements, using partial monitoring that provides sufficient accuracy for security decisions without the overhead of continuous high-precision tracking.
Data Source
AI summary
In various embodiments, the predicted location of a user within an institutional space is associated with a node at or near that location, and a virtual desktop is prepared before a user has actually logged on and authenticated. Although users are not accorded access to applications and sensitive data until they have properly authenticated themselves, the virtual desktop and associated data are assembled and retrieved in the background in order to eliminate delay following log-on.