Extending CIAM to Enable Modern Healthcare Applications
Tags: security, devops, news
Published: 2022-12-13 13:28:10

> Original post written by [Alexa Jacky](https://auth0.com/blog/authors/alexa-jacky/) for Auth0 blog.

### Customizing identity flows by stacking no-code integrations allows dev teams to innovate efficiently.

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As healthcare delivery models evolve and digital information unlocks new possibilities, a vast array of ecosystem participants face pressure to:

* **Build and manage consolidated patient portals** that link patients, patient advocates, and extended healthcare teams and that extend across multiple service providers.
* **Empower patients** with convenient self-service options and quicker access to appointment information, test results, diagnoses, forms, documentation, and their healthcare providers.
* **Provide rapid virtual care and assistance,** overcoming distance and time constraints and increasing accessibility of healthcare (and related) services.


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From established healthcare providers to newcomers aspiring to dominate entirely new markets, the organizations best positioned to succeed will be those that are best able to implement fundamental identity capabilities and extend beyond the identity basics.

All the while — and in everything they do — healthcare organizations have to comply with complex regulatory requirements (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR), which vary by jurisdiction and are often layered (i.e., state laws versus federal laws).

But with developer resources already in short supply and with a healthcare organization's primary applications rightfully commanding the lion's share of attention, engineering organizations need to satisfy identity requirements as quickly — and with as little custom code to write or maintain — as possible.

For example, Jay Anslow, Senior Software Engineer at [Babylon Health, shared with us that](https://auth0.com/case-studies/babylon-health), "We estimated that it would take a team of eight staff at least a year to meet our new requirements with a home-built solution. As well as the cost of having that team, it would have delayed our timeline, so we wouldn't have been able to get our functionality out the door as quickly."

## Identity Enables the Healthcare Ecosystem

Identity, particularly as it relates to securing sensitive data and complying with privacy regulations, has been a foundation of healthcare since long before the digital revolution — but as healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs) embraced new information formats and leveraged the Internet for collaboration, communications, service delivery, and other functions, customer identity and access management (CIAM) systems became essential elements of healthcare organizations' technology stacks.

On top of the transition that was already happening, the COVID-19 pandemic "caused a seven to ten-year acceleration in consumer and digital trends," [according to Richard Schwabacher, Senior VP of Digital Health and Chief Digital Officer at BioReference](https://auth0.com/case-studies/bioreference). The result is that "Securing, transmitting, and authorizing patient access to health information digitally is now critical to the practice of medicine and core to what is needed from a modern digital health solution."

And CIAM is vital to this functionality. Out of the box, leading CIAM solutions include many features that can help healthcare organizations meet new needs, allowing even small engineering teams to:

* [Create patient-centric experiences](https://auth0.com/case-studies/bioreference), built around each individual’s needs and preferences;
* [Enable a vast, interconnected, and growing healthcare ecosystem](https://auth0.com/case-studies/providence); and
* [Simultaneously meet security, privacy, and convenience](https://auth0.com/security) needs, rather than trading off between these necessary elements.

But while out-of-the-box functionality is important, the real world is a complex and dynamic beast (as anyone who's ever done a year-over-year roadmap comparison understands). Being able to accommodate change and tailor identity to your unique needs — and doing both without drawing too heavily upon developers — is the difference between CIAM as a necessary component of your application stack and CIAM as an operational and competitive advantage.

[Read more...](https://auth0.com/blog/extending-ciam-to-enable-modern-healthcare-applications/?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=sc&utm_campaign=devto)