Individual authentication in a collaborative environment: lessons from a single sign-on implementation

Organizations, addressing the call for individual accountability and best practices in data security, are considering the use of a single sign-on (SSO) approach for authentication and password management. However, complexities are introduced when the technology is placed in context, particularly within a healthcare environment. The difficulty emerges in trying to fit authentication that is individually oriented into an environment that is collaborative in nature. As such, there are a multitude of forces exerting tensions on the design decisions and ultimately the adoption of the authentication mechanism. These decisions must address the innate conflict between the top-down organizational policy perspective and the workflow realities. It is the focus of this field study to identify and document these tradeoffs, the decisions made, their implications to the work environment, and ultimately the technology adoption.