A security software company specializing in host intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS), Third Brigade (www.thirdbrigade.com), announced today that its host intrusion defense system was selected by a leading provider of healthcare IT services, Concordant, Inc., to help raise the bar for secure patient care and efficient physician services. The two companies have joined forces to build and manage secure, robust, and cost-effective Electronic Health Records (EHR) infrastructures for physician organizations and ambulatory practices.

    The partnership accelerated following Concordant’s selection by Beth Israel Deaconess Physicians Organization (BIDPO) / Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) to securely connect its diverse healthcare community, leveraging Third Brigade for host intrusion defense. The BIDPO/BIDMC secure healthcare community deployment has started with up to 300 practices in 173 locations.

    Dr. John Halamka, Chief Information Officer, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Chief Information Officer, Harvard Medical School, said: “There are significant challenges to providing highly reliable, well supported, and affordable Electronic Health Record solutions to highly diverse practices”, "EHR applications – like all feature-rich enterprise software – have inherent vulnerabilities that can impact quality of service and put patient data at risk. We rely on the expertise from Third Brigade to ensure the security and availability of our critical applications and protect patient confidentiality.”

    Michael Levinger, CEO, Concordant, Inc. said: "Third Brigade is a critical part of our hosted solution”,  “In addition to delivering best-of-breed intrusion detection and prevention that has had no noticeable impact on our IT operations, Third Brigade’s easy-to-use management console enables the fine-grained and role-based access control we require for our clientele of over 1,500 ambulatory practices and physicians organizations. "

    Concordant is a leading provider of health information technology (HIT) Services, specializing in HIT Planning, HIT Infrastructure, Application Services for Ambulatory Practices, Information Management, and Managed Services.