By Healthcare Facilities Today

Biometrics - measuring human characteristics - aren't anything new in health care.  X-rays, computerized tomography scans and a host of other medical technologies all represent ways to measure the human body. What is new, according to an article on the iHealth Beat website, is the use of biometric authentication.

"Health care is a strange environment in the sense that on the clinical side of health care we probably have some of the ... world's best technology," Paul Donfried, chief technology officer at LaserLock Technologies, a security technology vendor, said in the article. "On the business side of health care, it is almost the opposite. We actually have some of the most antiquated IT systems and IT infrastructure you can find anywhere."

"For the most part, 99% of the technology being used today is still basically user name and password," Donfried said. "You see almost no use of biometric technology for the authentication of patients or hospital staff, which is kind of ironic."

However, broader use of biometric authentication could be coming.

St. Vincent's Medical Center Clay County in Florida - which opened Oct. 1 - offers biometric patient check-in via palm scanning.

A number of blood banks now use fingerprint scanning to identify donors.  Apple's fingerprint scanning technology, built in to the new iPhone 5S, could eventually put biometrics in the hands of more healthcare providers. Nearly three-quarters of physicians use smartphones on the job, according to a March Kantar Media Sources & Interactions study.

Read the article.