SA`s first successful commercial application of a global PKI

JSE-listed Prism Holdings has implemented SA`s first successful commercial application of a global *PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) platform at HealthBridge, SA`s leading e-commerce healthcare organisation.

This catapults Prism to the forefront of developments in e-commerce security.

In partnership with Baltimore Technologies, Prism is hosting Baltimore`s UniCERT PKI system on behalf of HealthBridge to enable the issuance of digital certificates to medical practitioners in SA, authenticating them to medical aids in the region.

Using this technology, practitioners like doctors, dentists and physiotherapists, can now securely access the processing systems at medical aids to verify within 30 seconds a patient`s status such as, is the patient an active member of the medical aid and what is he or she covered for.

Commenting on the new secure healthcare service, Mark Lettin, South Africa Regional Manager at Baltimore Technologies, says: "Due to the sensitive nature of the data being accessed by the practitioner, it was imperative for HealthBridge to be able to ensure strong end-to-end security and authentication of users. I am proud to say that only Baltimore`s e-security technology and our ability to service the customer locally through our TrustedWorld partner Prism could provide HealthBridge with the complete solution to meet all its security objectives."

Baltimore UniCERT replaces HealthBridge`s in-house developed PKI system that, while meeting the healthcare industry`s demands for stringent security, was proving difficult, and increasingly expensive to maintain in terms of resource and development requirements.

This new security infrastructure not only meets HealthBridge`s security requirements but also has the flexibility to scale as more service providers come online. In addition, HealthBridge also licensed Baltimore KeySteps methodology to assist in the design and implementation of the PKI security system in order to reduce costs and timescales of deployment.

Through the deployment of Baltimore`s security technology, HealthBridge can now offer medical practitioners secure, authenticated direct access to the claims processing systems of the medical aids and immediate response for the status of messages sent back and forth. This results in dramatically faster payment turnaround times for service providers and significant savings in costs of administration to the medical aids.

"SA`s healthcare system is predominantly paper-based resulting in a high level of duplication and human error. HealthBridge`s aim is to move to an electronic system improving the quality and efficiency of their service. To achieve this they recognise the critical importance of security technology," says Steve Cullender, regional sales director at Prism South Africa.

"An analysis of the costs that would have been incurred to manage HealthBridge`s homegrown PKI system revealed that would be less expensive to replace it with an industry-standard product like Baltimore.

"In addition, HealthBridge opted to outsource the management of the PKI system to Prism which has one of the most formidable teams of cryptographic security experts in SA," he adds.

According to Cullendar, PKI is the technology - a set of applications, policies, practices, standards, and laws - used to secure the Internet. It establishes the trust and binding commitments that exist for physical business in the electronic world.

"PKI is the mechanism which guarantees the integrity of information and provides the relationships of trust which are the foundations of any commercial interaction in the physical and virtual worlds. Indeed, it meets the need for the four major security services that must be in place for any secure business transaction over the Internet: authentication (identification); confidentiality (privacy); integrity; and non-repudiation (signatures)," he concludes.