It has been proven time and again. Implementing security measures without taking user experience into account leaves you much less secure than you may have thought.
In order to get the job done, users — especially demanding ones like clinicians and staff — sometimes take actions that put patient data at risk of exposure. In fact, in a HIMSS Analytics Survey commissioned by Citrix, a surprising 17% of providers surveyed admitted to sometimes using unauthorized mobile devices to complete a work-related task.
Think about that for a second. Mobile threats to patient data are ever increasing. There are multi-million dollar fines and scrutiny from regulatory bodies and regulations around the globe, such as HIPAA and GDPR. Yet large numbers of healthcare providers are still using unauthorized devices and tools to access patient data. True, the caregivers are not doing this to be malicious; it is all in the service of helping patients. But now there is no need to compromise security to get the job done in a way that is seamless and secure because Citrix and Microsoft are offering better options to enable access to patient data.
Mobile Application Management (MAM) is one such option. Healthcare IT departments often turn to this method of securing patient data on devices. With MAM, data loss prevention policies are applied to the mobile apps themselves. IT departments can choose to use MAM with or without the entire device being managed by IT. In healthcare, this is especially appealing because clinicians may be reluctant to have their personal devices managed with full Mobile Device Management (MDM) policies and yet, they don’t want to carry around different IT-issued devices for every hospital or clinical setting where they may practice.
Both Citrix and Microsoft have standalone MAM solutions. What’s new and exciting is that with the recently available XenMobile integration with EMS/Intune, the solutions can be deployed together for better security and a better user experience. This integration opens up a couple of use cases of particular interest to healthcare. For example, a common request is for users to access the healthcare entity’s intranet resources from a mobile device. Now, clinicians and staff can use the Intune Browser (or for that matter any app deployed with Intune app protection policies) for single sign-on (SSO) access to resources behind the DMZ using an encrypted tunnel from just those apps. This is a seamless and more secure way to access corporate resources and it is only possible with the Citrix micro-VPN powered by NetScaler.
Another great use case is in the area of productivity and collaboration. It is a fact that only EMS/Intune can manage Office 365 mobile apps on mobile devices. With Intune App Protection policies, data sharing is blocked so that cut/copy/paste would not work with any other app including the Native mobile mail client or other mail clients such as VMware Boxer. Now, Citrix apps such as ShareFile or Secure Mail are what we refer to as “Intune Enlightened” and can be managed in the same Intune App Container alongside Office 365 mobile apps. Simple tasks like cut/copy/paste between ShareFile or Secure Mail and apps like Microsoft Word can now happen easily while still remaining encrypted and secure.
These are just a couple of examples of how the combined power of Citrix and Microsoft give IT more options to offer secure ways for clinicians to access data on mobile devices. More details and deployment options can be found in the XenMobile Integration with Microsoft EMS/Intune white paper.
Heading to HIMSS this year? Make sure to visit Citrix at HIMSS18. Click here for booth information. Also, to find out how Citrix and Microsoft are partnering with customers on their journey to the cloud, stop by the Microsoft Innovation Theater on Thursday, March 8th at 3:00pm for a discussion lead by Citrix Healthcare Evangelist, Christian Boucher.
Please be sure to visit the Citrix Ready Team while you are in Las Vegas at HIMSS18 and follow Citrix XenMobile on Twitter.
