Fujitsu rolls out PalmSecure vein identification at L.A. hospitals

Hospitals continue to be a lucrative market for biometric technologies, with administrators hoping the technology will solve a raft of problems from employee identification to drug distribution. The latest to take the plunge is City of Angels Medical Center, a hospital operator in the Los Angeles area, which this week began the roll-out of a vein biometric system manufactured by Sunnyvale, California-based Fujitsu Computer Products of America. Intended for use in tracking employees, the PalmSecure is ideal for hospital settings, not only because it is extremely accurate but because it does not require any surface contact between the hand and reader, making it much more hygenic than other approaches. “We looked at other types of biometric authentication devices such as hand topography and fingerprint I.D. but they had unacceptable levels of failure,” said City of Angels executive Robin Cowles.

We note also that the medical center will implement security software from Austin, Texas-based Softex. Readers will recall our report from last September announcing that the company had joined forces with Fujitsu to support all of it PalmSecure devices. As we explained at the time, Softex’s OmniPass software application is aimed at environments which require dual-layer identity management and authentication for secure data access. Implementation of the software application allows for secured login and encryption and decryption of files — all without needing passwords.

-read more in this company news release