Community Health Partners Selects Ensure Technologies' XyLoc MD To Meet Ohio Positive Identification Requirements

Solution Ensures Compliance with State Board of Pharmacy Information Security Rules

Ann Arbor , MI — December 8, 2003 — Community Health Partners has selected Ensure Technologies' XyLoc MD™ to meet the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy's Positive Identification requirements for computer-based applications in its pharmacy department.

Based in Greater Lorain County, Ohio, Community Health Partners is a part of Catholic Healthcare Partners, one of the largest not-for-profit health systems in the United States and the largest in Ohio. As with all hospitals in Ohio with pharmacies, Community Health Partners was facing a new regulation from the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy requiring that pharmacy applications be secured after 30 seconds of inactivity. Ensure Technologies is the leader in intelligent information security solutions. Its XyLoc MD provides proximity-based authentication and full-time access control to reduce users' PC security obligations and concerns.

"Community Health Partners continues to strive for high levels of patient safety and outcomes. Protection of our patients' electronic protected health information is a critical component of our commitment to our patients," said Robin Stursa, director of IT for Community Health Partners. "Additionally, the deployment of XyLoc MD will help position Community Health Partners to meet the security requirements of HIPAA in anticipation of the regulations going into effect in 2005."

"We have more than 50 pharmacists and staff members in the pharmacy department who constantly log in and out of multiple PCs and our McKesson pharmacy applications throughout their shifts. It's a very active environment and requiring our users to manually secure their PCs every single time they step away was asking too much," said Tony Mendenhall, director of pharmacy for Community Health Partners. "By implementing XyLoc we're able to easily meet the State Board of Pharmacy's Positive Identification requirements and let our users focus on their jobs without making them deal with the hassles of security policies. In fact, our users are very happy with the speedy authentication and access XyLoc provides to both our PCs and McKesson pharmacy applications. It's very easy for them to continue their work without having to constantly manually secure their PCs and applications and then re-login moments later."

Ensure's XyLoc MD provides full-time access control to thin client terminals and PCs, continuously authorizing users without burdening them with cumbersome security protocols. Its patented technology protects confidential data when it is most vulnerable - after logon, whenever the authorized user steps away from the PC. Users in XyLoc MD-protected facilities have immediate access to their applications and data and their workstations are automatically secured the moment they step away.

XyLoc is unique in its ability to make authentication smarter by balancing security and convenience. Users are recognized based on their proximity to their PCs. They wear unique XyLoc Keycards (that can also double as their ID badge) that communicate securely with proximity detection hardware and sophisticated software residing on each workstation. A computer is unlocked only after XyLoc has identified and authenticated a user.

"Community Health Partners is an excellent example of the tension that exists between security concerns and the realities of workflow and technology," said Dr. Thomas Xydis, president of Ensure. "It's just not realistic to expect people to be productive when they are asked to be hyper-vigilant about security procedures. In the case of the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy's 30-second inactivity requirement the burden is placed squarely on the user to secure the PC - not even the inactivity timer in Microsoft Windows' screen saver can be set for such a short time period. With XyLoc, however, the security is automatic and the users are free to do their jobs."

About Community Health Partners

Based in Lorain, Ohio, Community Health Partners is a faith-based, financially stable, preferred provider of healthcare for the body, mind and spirit of all persons in our service area through strong, innovative partnerships which meet the needs and wants of our community. Community Health Partners has recently been awarded a Level 3 recognition by the Ohio Award for Excellence examiners and panel of judges. The Ohio Award for Excellence (OAE) is a statewide program designed to promote quality awareness, leadership, and operations performance throughout the state. More information is available at http://www.community-health-partners.com.

About Ensure Technologies

Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ensure Technologies (www.ensuretech.com) is leader in secure information access solutions designed to protect an organization's intellectual property from internal security breaches - conveniently, automatically and transparently. Ensure's XyLoc products apply the innovative, patented technology of full-time access control and proximity-based authentication to guard corporate data. XyLoc delivers security with convenience and personalization at leading organizations in healthcare, financial services, government, manufacturing, and law throughout the world.

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