Access Shouldn’t Be This Hard: Make Secure, Simple

Keeping bad actors out means nothing if the right people can't get in. Security that gets in the way of critical work isn't working.

Yet, this is exactly what's happening every day in the industries we depend on most: healthcare, manufacturing, and public safety. The people who keep us healthy, stocked, and safe are being slowed down by systems that were meant to support them. The impact goes beyond just lost time. It manifests in delayed care, stalled operations, and critical moments slipping through the cracks.

And that impacts all of us. For instance, in a hospital emergency department on a busy Saturday morning, a clinician moves quickly between patients, trying to keep up with the growing line of people in the waiting room. Every exam room is full, the charting queue is piling up, and the clock is ticking.

They try to pull up a patient's health record, but the system logs them out-again. The organization's new password policy requires 17 characters, a symbol, no repeats, and resets every 90 days. One wrong keystroke and they're kicked out completely, forced to return to the nurses' station or call the help desk just to get back in. Meanwhile, the patient is left waiting in the exam room with no update and no idea what's taking so long. That's what's holding things up.

Not a lack of urgency or staffing shortage-but a password policy.

Meanwhile, at manufacturing plants across the country, technicians arrive for their shift, attempt to clock in, and are prompted to reset their long, complex password that also needs to change every 90 days. They spend 10 minutes coming up with a new password and verifying their identity. Eventually they're prompted for multifactor authentication (MFA), which requires jumping between apps and devices. While they sort this out, other frontline workers experience the same problem, and the production line sits idle. Order fulfillment slows down, inventory is delayed, and customers are unhappy.

Even law enforcement agencies are impacted by unfriendly password policies. A police officer pulls over between calls to complete a report on their patrol car computer. But to access the system and satisfy compliance with regulatory mandates, they must log in to multiple applications, each requiring separate credentials and MFA. Session timeouts are short, forcing officers to repeatedly reauthenticate throughout their shift. This friction slows down critical work and adds unnecessary stress to a high-pressure environment, creating the potential to pull officers' focus away from what matters most: public safety.

In critical moments when every second counts, no one should be spent fighting with technology. Frontline workers simply don't have time for it.

For too long, complex logins, repetitive authentication, outdated access systems, and security processes have forced frontline workers to jump through unnecessary hoops just to do their jobs, resulting in burnout, workarounds, compliance gaps, and lost time that no one can afford. But it doesn't have to be this way.

When security is too complex, it slows people down, drains productivity, and pushes them to cut corners just to keep up. But when security is too simple, it opens the door to risks and threats, putting patients, communities, operations, and reputations in harm's way.

Security shouldn't slow users down. It shouldn't get in the way. It should be invisible until needed and effortless when required-simple as that. Access processes should be leveraged as a tool for driving stronger outcomes like more productive teams, faster response times, safer care, and operations that move at the pace of real work.

The technology is here. The time is now. Stop letting outdated systems steal time from what matters most. Demand security that protects systems without getting in the way.

It's time to stop overcomplicating security and take a smarter approach to access.

It's time to make secure, simple.