The future of Identity and Access Management (IAM) is here
With on-prem single sign on (SSO) no longer meeting emergent needs, organisations face increased legislative demands and require the ability to rapidly deploy and access systems across organisations within their ecosystem.
Pain is felt by organisations due to a plethora of systems and associated login credentials, with precious time being wasted by frontline staff accessing them; account creation, the movement of staff between organisations and collaborative working was complex.
Organisations today seek to rationalise resources, share assets, control authorisation and authentication and lessen the red tape when working with other public sector organisations and the public.
This is where GMID comes into the picture – a digitally innovative, regional identity service, created by tech innovator Shaping Cloud, the NHS, and GMCA.
What is GMID?
GMID is a simple, seamless authentication and authorisation system that can plug into existing architecture, facilitating new system integration.
GMID focuses on the fundamentals of IAM and takes the best of the latest standards and developments, incorporating these concepts into a new, innovative digital product. Enabling seamless access and sharing of applications and data across organisational boundaries.
The operational advantages of GMID
Through GMID, Data Owners can control access to their resources, providing the user with visibility and control of the services using their identity whilst giving them the least privilege to perform their tasks.
The GMID system is both auditable and observable, heterogeneous, and eliminates duplication of current functionality; providing a complementary service which is re-usable across different touchpoints.
GMID enables organisations to create users centrally, granting them instant access to applications, with the same capability to terminate access, providing application providers a single integration point.
This plug and play nature enable new suppliers/systems to be onboarded using open identity standards – reducing future investment in development.
It works with multiple identification providers and trust vectors to share central role or attribute data to allow the access of information, delivering the end-user a consistent SSO experience and flexible authentication methods.
The future of GMID and IAM
GMID launched as an MVP with one use case.
Today, GMID is considered a core digital component of the GM Digital Platform.
GMID is one of the first non-NHSD apps to be authorised to use NHS Login (for secure and verified patient access). Yet it provides a variety of authentication options including Microsoft Identity, to enable controlled access to any app or resource that connects to it.
But this is just the beginning.
This digitally innovative system allows the flow of information to facilitate real world working practises and solve user problems so interactions can be maximised.
Information can be shared between the public, health care professionals and local authority representatives, safe in the knowledge the data is secure and being accessed by appropriate parties.
This not only improves the services of public sector organisations and their operations, business functions, as well as data and resource handling and access, but it also improves the services of their service users.
GMID is currently utilised by applications to:
- Reduce smoking in pregnancy
- Digitise child development plans
- Facilitate interactions with various stakeholders regarding school age children’s development requirements
With plans to onboard the following applications which:
- Reduce homelessness
- Facilitate education funding
- Aid hospital discharge
- Support patients’ treatment journeys through complex ecosystems, amongst others
GMID is so much more than just an IAM system.
It is a system that holds true value, providing opportunities to improve not just organisations' operations and services, but its employees and service users' experiences and outcomes too.
Shaping Cloud is hopeful that the public sector can benefit from the innovative approach we’ve taken with GMCA and GMHSCP, therefore if you have IAM needs please contact our sales team.
Katherine Holden
Katherine joined techUK in May 2018 and currently leads the Data Analytics, AI and Digital ID programme.
