The Critical Access Management Gap We Need to Talk About at Identiverse

Chip Hughes, Chief Product Officer, Imprivata

Every business wants to be secure. Every business needs to be productive. But in practice, the way we manage access too often forces a choice between the two.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the places where work moves fastest: on the hospital floor, in the warehouse, on the production line. These environments rely on shared devices and workstations, a rotating mix of staff with varying roles and responsibilities, legacy and SaaS applications running concurrently, and contractors and vendors who need access. Unfortunately, this complexity often leads to the use of inconsistent, clunky, or outdated access methods like long, hard-to-remember passwords or manual multifactor authentication (MFA).

The result? A lose-lose scenario where security gaps grow wider and operational efficiency suffers, coming at a cost to the business in both risk exposure and lost productivity.

This is the critical access management gap that we need to address, and it’s why Imprivata is bringing this important conversation to Identiverse 2025.

Beyond compliance: The importance of access management

Most modern enterprises are working hard to meet regulatory requirements, checking the boxes for frameworks like NIST, HIPAA, CMMC, and CJIS. But compliance alone isn’t always enough to ensure total control.

Access and security policies may be enough to qualify for cyber insurance and demonstrate compliance, but in practice, we still see:

  • Overprovisioned access rights
  • Credentials shared amongst frontline workers
  • Long session timeouts on shared workstations
  • Persistent logins with no audit trail
  • Vendors granted broad access with little oversight

These gaps quietly undermine accountability and productivity. When something goes wrong, there’s isn’t always a clear way to trace who did what, when, or why, creating a business continuity issue.

To move forward, organizations need to shift from reactive compliance to a proactive access management strategy that’s ensures visibility, usability, and agility.

Access as a Strategic Business Imperative

Access management is more than just an IT responsibility; it’s a foundational element of business infrastructure. It shapes how quickly people can get to the tools and information they need, how securely they operate, and how well organizations respond to disruption.

But most access strategies weren't designed to function across shared device ecosystems or operational technology (OT) environments, which often contain a mix of cloud, SaaS, on-premises, and legacy systems. Many assume a one-user, one-device model. They’re slow to adapt to new roles or third-party users, they add friction to fast-paced workflows, and they can’t deliver full visibility into who’s accessing what.

If the access strategy doesn’t reflect how an organization works, it might be doing more harm than good, especially in critical industries where optimal performance, scalability, and accountability matter most.

To be truly effective, access must be fast, secure, and frictionless for users, designed to flex with changing environments, support frontline workflows, and integrate with diverse technology ecosystems.

Enabling Shared Device Access for the Modern Enterprise

Shared devices and workstations are the norm in industries like healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, and public safety. These environments demand high performance and real-time decision-making—but traditional access management tools are falling short.

Too often, shared device access depends on generic logins, sticky notes, or long and complex passwords. It slows down work and opens the door to security gaps, compliance failures, and end-user frustration.

Access should never undermine security or hinder productivity, which is why this is exactly what I’ll address in my upcoming session:

I’m looking forward to exploring the reasons why this challenge exists, what it’s costing your business, and how the right access management strategy and passwordless authentication can eliminate login fatigue, prevent credential sharing, and dramatically improve both productivity and compliance readiness.

From Passwordless Authentication to Vendor Access: Building for Simplicity and Speed

So, what does the right access management strategy look like for fast-paced, mission-critical environments?

Some of the fundamentals include passwordless authentication that is context-aware, role-aware, personalized, and designed for usability. That includes:

These are no longer “nice to haves.” Rather, they’re becoming essential to maintaining business continuity, scaling securely, and giving your teams the tools they need to do their jobs, without compromise.

Because when access works, work flows. And when it doesn’t, everything slows down.

Closing the Gap Before the Risk Multiplies

Access shouldn't hold your business back; it should be the enabler that keeps everything moving—securely, efficiently, and with full visibility.

If we want to reduce risk without sacrificing productivity, we need to move past checkbox compliance and start treating access management as a strategic business priority. That means designing for frontline realities, supporting secure and frictionless shared device access, enabling mobile workflows, and finally making it easy to give the right people the right access at the right time.

Whether you're a security leader, IT strategist, or someone trying to bring clarity to a complex technology environment, I’d love to connect.

Join me at Identiverse booth #326 to continue the conversation and see the Imprivata team in action.