1Kosmos brings identity checks to EpicCare Link users

1Kosmos has made its identity verification platform available to EpicCare Link users, targeting onboarding for referring providers and external clinicians who need access to patient data.

Healthcare organisations can use the service within EpicCare Link to verify clinician identities before activating accounts. The product is listed in Epic Toolbox in the Identity Verification category for EpicCare Link.

EpicCare Link is used by health systems and affiliated care networks to give external providers access to clinical information for referrals, care coordination and information sharing. In that environment, onboarding volumes can run into the thousands, putting pressure on administrative teams that often still rely on manual reviews or attestations from outside organisations.

Those checks can leave gaps when staff are trying to confirm that an applicant is who they claim to be. 1Kosmos said identity impersonation, credential abuse and fraudulent account creation are becoming more serious concerns as provider networks exchange more data digitally.

How it works

Under the integration, a clinician starting the onboarding process in EpicCare Link is routed into a verification workflow using OpenID Connect. The user receives a secure link, takes a selfie and scans a government-issued identity document.

1Kosmos verifies the document, compares the selfie with the ID image, performs a liveness check and reviews fraud signals before sending a result back to EpicCare Link. If verification is successful, account provisioning can continue automatically.

The workflow is configurable through 1Kosmos's Workflow Builder tool, allowing healthcare organisations to set their own verification requirements and onboarding policies without custom development. This is aimed at health systems that want tighter access controls for external provider networks while limiting extra work for identity and access management teams.

1Kosmos said its verification process conforms with NIST Identity Assurance Level 2, a standard used to establish a high degree of confidence in a claimed identity through document authentication, biometric matching and liveness testing. In healthcare, that level of assurance is relevant when external clinicians are granted access to sensitive patient records.

Sector pressure

The announcement reflects a broader shift in healthcare security towards verifying not only patients and employees, but also third-party clinicians who interact with electronic health record systems. Hospitals and health networks increasingly depend on outside physicians, specialists and partner organisations, expanding the number of users who require access.

That growth has created a longstanding tension between ease of onboarding and strong verification. Manual checks may slow referrals and account creation, but weak controls can expose organisations to unauthorised access and compliance risks if the wrong person is admitted to a clinical system.

Knowledge-based verification methods, often used in other sectors, have also come under greater scrutiny as fraud techniques become more sophisticated. Selfie matching, document checks and liveness detection have spread as organisations seek stronger evidence that a remote applicant is genuine.

For EpicCare Link users, the immediate significance is that identity verification is being built into a familiar workflow rather than handled in a separate offline process. That may appeal to organisations trying to reduce ad hoc review steps when enrolling external clinicians.

Huzefa Olia, Chief Operating Officer at 1Kosmos, said the focus is on extending stronger identity checks to healthcare professionals with access to records.

"Healthcare organizations need strong identity assurance not only for patients, but also for the external clinicians who access sensitive electronic health records every day. Our integration with EpicCare Link enables health systems to verify referring providers before they ever touch patient data, while eliminating the manual review processes that traditionally slow onboarding and create operational overhead," said Olia.

1Kosmos, based in New Jersey, said it conducts millions of authentications each day across sectors including banking, telecommunications, healthcare and retail. The company has raised more than USD $72 million in venture funding.