OpenID for Physician
With the growing web presence of Payors, Physicians and Patient who cross multiple vendors there will be a greater need to maintain multiple user registrations amongst different entities. The idea is to create a single openID platform that centralizes the user credntials for physicians nationwide. This would rapidly increase the adoption of using different web tools from the physician community without having register with 10 different Payor websites in a market. The OpenID can follow the NPI standard and be maintained by a single preferable not for profit group that can be now share this with all other payors, providers and so on in a regional markets. As more web technologies develop for getting information, online claims and prescription processing, at least the login and credentialing for all these sites can be kept common. New developers would facilitate login by just adding an openID logon.
This would also provide seamless single sign without having to implement different protocols etc for single sign for Physicians. Similarly, this could be adapted for patients to use across multiple sites including Payor sites, manufacturer sites, disease management sites etc.
Implementing OpenID for Physicians
The system would function as follows:
1) Physician navigates to a participating openID site.
2) They request a new logon from the central server which is a black box.
3) The black box checks to make sure this is not a duplicate account for that physician.
4) Once the site confirms that this is a new user it is sent to credentialing.
5) Credentialing can be performed in many ways and can become a shared responsibility for the community of sites within a region.
6) The black box can maintain a even playing field so that one participating site is not the one always bearing the cost. It can send the request to maintain level costs across the spectrum of users.
The best way to finance a site like this would be charge a per login fee. This fee could be nominal. This fee can also be used to pay participating sites a potential fee credentialing so credentialing can shift from a cost center to a potential break-even center. Note this is merely a black box so one participant site would never see the information of another site.
The technology to accomplish all this is secondary. It’s the will of participants to commit to supporting this initiatives. As noted earlier this could be interfaced with social networks, consumers, secure email…it’s a simple application to aggregate physician usage of tools and to finally facilitate electronic interchange in Healthcare.
If anyone is actually reading this...please comment. And yes I would be a willing collaborator if anyone actually wants to do this....