February 15, 2016
Apria Healthcare is one of the nation’s leading providers of home respiratory services and certain medical equipment. Headquartered in Lake Forest, California, Apria operates more than 400 locations servicing 1.8 million patients per year through in-home care and 24/7 clinical services. In order to support in-home care, Apria's 8,000 employees make use of mobile devices. Security of patient data on these devices is of the utmost importance, particularly in light of HIPAA and HiTECH constraints.
Apria sought a solution to mitigate the potential risk of exposed data on lost or stolen devices and to remotely monitor the status of devices to avoid a healthcare data breach.
Apria Healthcare turned to Absolute DDS as the only solution that could offer a reliable two-way connection to each device. Once activated, Persistence technology by Absolute gives Apria oversight across all their devices. Each new device purchased is set up with Absolute DDS right away. At any given time, Absolute DDS gives insight into the thousands of devices being used off the local network around the US and internationally. By ensuring patient data remains secure on mobile devices and tablets, Apria Healthcare is able to ensure employees in the field have access to patient data to improve care results. To make that data meaningful, Apria has created several groups of employees based on their location and function, with automated alerts if details (like username or location) change unexpectedly. Apria is then able to investigate and remotely freeze or wipe the device, as needed.
Janet Hunt, Senior Director of IT Quality & Support Services at Apria Healthcare notes,
“Absolute DDS is the number one priority for our CIO. I can’t verbalize how important this is to my company and how much more effective we’ve become at securing our healthcare data."
Apria recently deployed Microsoft Surface tablets, protected with Absolute DDS, to respiratory therapists in the field. In this way, Apria’s therapists are able to access critical patient data remotely to improve patient care. To find out how the Apria Healthcare uses Absolute DDS to secure patient and financial information, gain visibility into device location and activity and improve access to patient care in the field, check out the case study here or read up on our healthcare solutions here.
Share this article
