ENABLING REMOTE ENROLLMENT

Health and Human Services Uses NextgenID Solutions to Streamline Nationwide Enrollment

CHALLENGE:

Streamline Credential Enrollment for a Highly Decentralized Workforce

For the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), enabling secure physical and logical access for more than 80,000 employees is directly related to its ability to deliver the essential and critical public services provided by its agencies, which include the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

HHS manages its own Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) program and was experiencing growing friction with its traditional, centralized credential enrollment model:

• Bottlenecks of centralized enrollment: Enrollees were subject to long waits and longer travel times to attend in-person appointments at a select group of PIV Card Issuance Facilities (PCIFs). Staffing and technology issues further limited availability.
• High travel costs for remote employee enrollment: With a large workforce of remote employees, HHS was paying thousands of dollars per person to fly remote employees to PCIFs.
• Pandemic necessitates remote enrollment: The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic instantly amplified the severity and urgency of these credential enrollment pain points. “We needed to figure out: How do you create high-assurance credentials without in-person identity proofing?” says Adam McBride, ICAM Program Manager for HHS. Like most employers, HHS also saw the number of remote employees significantly increase post-pandemic—augmenting the delays and costs of requiring remote employees to travel to centralized PCIFs.

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SOLUTION:

Enable Decentralized & Remote Enrollment

McBride led an initiative to evaluate solutions that could enable HHS to conduct remote identity-proofing and credential enrollment, and he says NextgenID met the requirements because of its unique capabilities and advantages:

• A complete, American-made (hardware + software) solution: NextgenID provided both the hardware (self-service kiosks) and the SRIP (Secure Remote Identity Proofing) software, offering a comprehensive solution.
• Established remote enrollment process: In addition to the technology, NextgenID had an established enrollment process built on identity and security best practices.
• Flexible SRIP agent model: Strict HHS credentialing standards would have required third-party SRIP agents to go through a lengthy and costly credentialing process. “NextgenID gave us the option to use their SRIP software with our own enrollment staff acting as the SRIP agents, which was more practical and cost-effective for us,” says McBride.
• Flexible pricing: “We’re mindful of spend,” says McBride. “NextgenID offered pricing based on transactions, which worked well with our budget.” HHS pays upfront for the bulk of its enrollment transactions, with additional costs for credential management transactions (renewals, re-issuance, PIN changes, etc.).
• Complete managed service: Under the service agreement, NextgenID provides all hardware, software, and services, while HHS provides the space and power for the kiosks. “We don’t have to buy the hardware. They set it up, they maintain it—it’s not a hassle, which is big,” says McBride.

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DEPLOYMENT:

Successful Pilot Evolves into Nationwide Expansion

• Pilot moves into production: HHS began with a three-site pilot project to refine the user experience, train SRIP agents, and ensure seamless integration. “The pilot went smoothly—and turned into production, because we had an agency that needed 40,000 people enrolled (fingerprints, background checks, etc.) and NextgenID was able to help right away,” says McBride. He credits this quick win to the NextgenID development team. “Their team is phenomenal. They seamlessly worked with varying technical teams on our credential management team—different for every agency.”
• Rapidly adding kiosk locations: HHS then expanded its remote enrollment program, deploying kiosks at 15 federal locations and two units for the Indian Health Services. McBride says HHS plans to eventually expand to allow remote enrollment at as many as 90 sites around the country.

• Enabling multi-tenant access: To make kiosk deployment more cost-effective, HHS has allowed its kiosks to be multi-tenanted, which improved governmental efficiency. The kiosks can be used for remote credentialing by any other federal, state, local, or tribal entity—or any commercial organization.
• The PresenceID™ network brings nationwide availability: HHS also joined NextgenID’s PresenceID™ nationwide network, providing employees with convenient enrollment options at a large and growing network of locations across the U.S. McBride reports that, so far, HHS enrollees have made effective use of all of the PresenceID™ nationwide network locations.

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RESULTS:

Drive Measurable Cost Savings & Value

“The big benefit for us with the solution we’ve created with NextgenID is the accessibility and cost savings,” says McBride, highlighting several ways the remote enrollment solution has delivered value:

• Reduced travel costs: Remote enrollment eliminated the need for costly travel to centralized locations. “This is where the big cost savings come for us: a person not having to be flown from Alaska to San Francisco, for example—with travel, lodging, that’s thousands of dollars each time,” says McBride. “When you look at annual turnover, plus contractor staff—that’s a lot of money, and that’s not counting lost productivity.”
• Faster enrollment process: The self-service functionality of the NextgenID kiosks significantly speeds the entire enrollment process. HHS users can visit the nearest location and scan their unique QR code to complete the entire process in just 5-10 minutes.
• Faster onboarding/time to productivity: The reduced travel time and streamlined enrollment processes reduced appointment wait times and improved overall efficiency—meaning users can be credentialed faster with less disruption to productivity. “If we have staffing problems or scheduling conflicts, we can easily get someone a QR code and have them visit one of the self-service kiosks,” says McBride.

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FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES:

Expand Utilization of NextgenID Solutions

• Self-Service Credential Activation: “We’re now looking at expanding use of the NextgenID kiosk for credential activation—to bind the credential to the PIV card,” says McBride. Because HHS is already staffing the SRIP agents for the kiosks, they can send employees to an existing PCIF or a PresenceID™ nationwide network location to complete the activation process for their PIV cards.
• Mobile Enrollment Kits: McBride says HHS is looking at how they can use the NextgenID mobile kits for remote enrollment in various locations. “Right now, we have to take all this government-issued equipment—a big and bulky mess,” he says. The mobile kits replace all of this with a compact, rugged design. “We can enroll hundreds of people anywhere—they set it up and they’re off and running,” says McBride, “That streamlined mobile capability is something I think a lot of government agencies could use and will use.”