The solution allows L&D Hospital to improve standards by decreasing the amount of patient systems that have to be accessed; and the strong authentication safety protocols of Vergence improves patient safety and reduces the number of help desk calls.

L&D Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is a 500-bed acute hospital in Bedfordshire, providing a range of services to a population of 350,000. L&D were the first hospital in the UK to be recognised for improving patient safety and, in 2009 they were rated as best NHS Hospital in the East of England by scoring excellent in the Annual Health Check ratings.

Vergence provides a full-featured, roles-based single sign-on capability enabling clinicians to enter their ID and password once in order to gain access to any application they are permitted to use. Furthermore, with Fast User Switching, the process of signing on and off a workstation shared with other healthcare professionals takes only a few seconds. When logged on, Vergence enables clinicians to select the patient of interest once, from any system, in order to synchronise all applications to that specific patient. This ability to automatically share context between applications saves time and minimises the risk of mixing data for different patients.

"Doctors face a number of different challenges in their line of work," says Sab Raza, IT project manager, from Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. "One of the most frustrating challenges is the amount of passwords that have to be remembered and used during the course of the day to access different patient systems. If this can be avoided, efficiency and productivity will improve immediately."

"With a high volume of patients needing care, we wanted to implement a solution that not only improved efficiency, but also patient safety, and one that has already been proven to work across the NHS. We made the decision to deploy Vergence after witnessing its capabilities at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH). The improvements to their hospital operations and the advanced level of care provided as a result exceeded our expectations," concluded Raza.

John Gobron, Sales Director for Microsoft's Health Solutions Group UK, said, "Accessing patient records in order to provide a quality healthcare service shouldn't be a time consuming and in-efficient area of any hospital. Hospitals need to sift through realms of patient data in the UK and we have proved through the use of Vergence that this data can be used more effectively for the benefit of patients, clinicians and hospital managers. With greater accessibility and ease of use, healthcare professionals can deliver the insights and analysis needed for a professional healthcare service."

Since the acquisition of Sentillion in February 2010, Microsoft has introduced new functionality for Vergence and expreSSO products, expanded distribution of products into the Asia Pacific market; and seen continued strength in demand for the company's solutions among health organisations ranging from single facilities to large, complex, multi-state health systems.

Related news articles:

• Microsoft's Profile

About Microsoft in Health
Microsoft is committed to improving health around the world through software innovation. Over the past 13 years, Microsoft has steadily increased its investments in health with a focus on addressing the challenges of health providers, health and social services organisations, payers, consumers and life sciences companies worldwide. Microsoft closely collaborates with a broad ecosystem of partners and delivers its own powerful health solutions, such as Amalga, HealthVault, and a portfolio of identity and access management technologies acquired from Sentillion Inc. in 2010. Together, Microsoft and its industry partners are working to deliver health solutions for the way people aspire to work and live.

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.