Located in the heart of Boston’s Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Dana Farber Cancer Institute is an internationally renowned clinical and research institute that supports more than 320,000 patient visits annually and is involved in some 700 clinical trials to provide state-of-the-art cancer care.
World renowned for research, patient care…and security
Located in the heart of Boston’s Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Dana Farber Cancer Institute is an internationally renowned clinical and research institute that supports more than 320,000 patient visits annually and is involved in some 700 clinical trials to provide state-of-the-art cancer care.
It is the only hospital in the U.S. that is ranked in the top four nationally by U.S. News and World Report in both adult and pediatric cancer care. With such heavy emphasis on patient care and research, the security infrastructure in place is as industry-renowned as the hospital itself.
Reliability and flawless interoperability is vital
The Dana Farber security team is dedicated to ensuring continuous security operations will not disrupt patient care or the critical research for which Dana Farber is celebrated. As a result, the Institute worked with Software House and deployed C-CURE 9000 more than a decade ago because of the system’s incredible versatility that allows them to add features as needed and integrate with a vast number of other systems in use at Dana Farber.
The system, with a StoneLock Pro integration, is designed to protect the invaluable equipment within the labs but, more importantly, ensure that only trained personnel can access the facility and “clean rooms” to eliminate risk of contamination.
StoneLock provides frictionless security assurance
StoneLock Pro is deployed as Dana Farber’s biometric authentication solution of choice for environments where security and abidance to strict “clean room” rules are of vital concern. Each day at Dana Farber, clinicians simply present their badge and face the StoneLock Pro biometric device which quickly identifies them by scanning thousands of points on and beneath each person’s face in less than a second using 100% Near-Infrared technology. The clinicians are then either granted or denied access based on their privileges and other criteria including whether the occupancy limits have been exceeded in the clean room, or if the clinician has passed through the necessary checkpoints for admittance.
“We previously had an iris-based biometric solution, but it would not scale in the way that was needed to support this facility,” said Ralph Nerette, Director of Security and Emergency Risk Management at Dana Farber. “So, we re-evaluated our options and focused on a scalable, secure, and frictionless solution from StoneLock.”
The StoneLock Pro facial recognition system is designed for maximum scalability, with the enrollment and management of all templates occurring through a central application versus at each individual device. Additionally, the solution does not store sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) – something that greatly appealed to the security team at Dana Farber.
“The no PII factor was a big deal for us,” said Nerette. “With so much emphasis on cybersecurity and identity theft, every single solution we look at must provide assurances to our employees and contractors that their personal information is safe.”
Leader in biometric security
StoneLock is a privately held, woman-owned, Kansas-based company with a Washington DC presence addressing the demanding security requirements in the government space. At StoneLock, we bring together unique knowledge and capabilities in the areas of biometrics and identity management. We design and manufacture superior enterprise-ready biometric access control products, configurable as standalone solutions or integrated with other leading security management systems such as Software House, Lenel, Honeywell, AMAG, and others.
Product Adopted:Biometrics