Phil Leahy, Service Relationship Manager for OpenAthens, will be presenting 'Who needs a Healthcare Federation' on Thursday 12 July 2012.

Since 2002, Athens has been the de facto standard in the UK NHS for accessing subscription content such as medical journals, clinical databases and key information on the selection, prescribing, dispensing and administration of medicines. The last four or five years has also seen the emergence of what is popularly known as Shibboleth, one of several open standards in access management technology, and this has been adopted by the UK Access Management Federation, as well as other academic access management federations worldwide.

But healthcare communities have largely been prevented from joining such federations, usually because the capital investment required to establish the federations has come from the academic sector. Naturally, the eligibility rules for membership have been established to allow only the organisations that have contributed to their creation, either through direct funding or top-slicing.

This has left many healthcare organisations to wonder if they are missing out, or being left behind. What advantages does Shibboleth bring? If it’s free, why are we still paying for Athens? And what is SAML?

Come along and find out how the OpenAthens Healthcare Federation (OAHF) is providing healthcare organisations and publishers in the global healthcare sector a framework for a much wider membership than is offered by the academic access management federations.

Visit the conference website for more information or to register to attend.