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Healthcare network access

For more than 140 years, The Albert Einstein Healthcare Network (AEHN) has provided medical care to the greater Philadelphia area and has earned a reputation for quality, excellence and leadership in the healthcare field.

To better serve the communities of greater Philadelphia, the network split from Jefferson Health System, Philadelphia’s largest healthcare system, to pursue its own independent strategic direction. As a result, Albert Einstein Medical Centre changed its name to Albert Einstein Healthcare Network. Senior management implemented a rebranding strategy that included a new corporate identity and mission as well as a new logo.

The first major challenge for AEHN security, led by Russell Jones, network director for Protective Services at the organisation, was replacing the employees’, doctors’, volunteers’ and other medical staff’s badges with ID cards featuring the network’s new logo. And while developing a re-badging production strategy, Jones decided to leverage the project to upgrade their entire access control system as well.

This was no small task. With four hospitals, seven campuses and approximately 50 offsite primary care physician and surgical centre locations, the medical centre and its network host 1200 beds, 6000 employees, 1200 staff and voluntary physicians, 10 000 visitors per day and more than 100 000 emergency room patients per year.

New readers were required to replace the 300 existing Weigand swipe card readers, and 7000 new badges needed to be securely produced and distributed to the ID card holders efficiently, and with minimal disruption to the normal flow of business.

The network selected Siemens as the technology integrator on the project. Siemens chose HID Global’s iCLASS technology readers and smartcards, and HID Identity on Demand Services to securely produce the thousands of new ID badges.

HID Global provided the current Wiegand system at AEHN, so it was a natural progression to upgrade the access control system and produce badges using HID Global’s solutions, since Jones and his department already trusted the company’s products and services.

By choosing iCLASS contactless smartcards, AEHN facilities now have higher levels of security than traditional access-control technologies. They also benefit from a platform that not only incorporated the payroll system, but it can easily add other applications, such as single sign-on and cashless vending.

Based on Siemens and HID Global’s recommendations, AEHN leveraged HID’s expertise by choosing to use HID Identity on Demand Services rather than producing the badges in-house.

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