Authenticating Users – The Struggle to Raise the Bar

Photo Credit: Ibrahim Asad / Flickr (CC: by)Interesting quote from an article that I was reading this morning:

“When creating a patient portal that provides access to electronic health records, healthcare organizations must educate patients about the need for authenticating their identities, says Sharp HealthCare CIO Bill Spooner. […] Spooner notes that some patients have complained that the authentication method for its patient portal is cumbersome.”

It’s not the fault of the user, they’ve not been educated as to why the bar should be higher (and they don’t necessarily understand the potential consequence of a low bar). It’s not the fault of the business, after all things have been “good enough so far” so why spend money changing something that doesn’t look like it’s broken?

It’s (almost) nice to know there are others struggling with the balance between usability, user acceptance, funding and the changing landscape of threat.


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