PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - George A Gellert AU - Sean P Kelly AU - Allen L Hsiao AU - Brian Herrick AU - Donna Weis AU - Jeffrey Lutz AU - Glynn Stanton AU - Santos Bonilla AU - Daniel Borgasano AU - Matthew Erich AU - Claire Reilly AU - Daniel Johnston TI - COVID-19 surge readiness: use cases demonstrating how hospitals leveraged digital identity access management for infection control and pandemic response AID - 10.1136/bmjhci-2022-100680 DP - 2022 Nov 01 TA - BMJ Health & Care Informatics PG - e100680 VI - 29 IP - 1 4099 - http://informatics.bmj.com/content/29/1/e100680.short 4100 - http://informatics.bmj.com/content/29/1/e100680.full SO - BMJ Health Care Inform2022 Nov 01; 29 AB - Background Surging volumes of patients with COVID-19 and the high infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2 challenged hospital infection control/safety, staffing, care delivery and operations as few crises have. Imperatives to ensure security of patient information, defend against cybersecurity threats and accurately identify/authenticate patients and staff were undiminished, which fostered creative use cases where hospitals leveraged identity access and management (IAM) technologies to improve infection control and minimise disruption of clinical and administrative workflows.Methods Working with a leading IAM solution provider, implementation personnel in the USA and UK identified all hospitals/health systems where an innovative use of IAM technology improved facility infection control and pandemic response management. Interviews/communications with hospital clinical informatics leaders collected information describing the use case deployed.Results Eight innovative/valuable hospital use cases are described: symptom-free attestation by clinicians at shift start; detection of clinician exposure/contact tracing; reporting of clinician temperature checks; inpatient telehealth consults in isolation units; virtual visits between isolated patients and families; touchless single sign-on authentication; secure access enabled for rapid expansion of personnel working remotely; and monitoring of temporary worker attendance.Discussion No systematic, comprehensive survey of all implemented IAM client sites was conducted, and other use cases may be undetected. A standardised reporting/information sharing vehicle is needed whereby IAM use cases aiding facility pandemic response and infection control can be disseminated.Conclusions Clinical care, infection control and facility operations were improved using IAM solutions during COVID-19. Facility end-user innovation in how IAM solutions are deployed can improve infection control/patient safety, care delivery and clinical workflows during surges of epidemic infectious diseases.Data are available upon reasonable request. All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information. All data relevant to the study are included in the article, in the form of output of communications and interviews with hospital personnel. However, no data set was generated for this study.