Identity verification company CLEAR is broadening its reach in healthcare, inking partnerships with Hackensack Meridian Health and Tampa General Hospital.
Hackensack Meridian Health. New Jersey’s largest health network, is working with CLEAR to make it easier for patients to check in for appointments and access their medical records.
CLEAR well recognized for its biometric identity verification tech used in airports, has been making inroads in healthcare as organizations look to get rid of the clipboard in waiting rooms. The company's digital ID services are free for patients through its health system partnerships.
The company cut its teeth in a highly regulated industry—aviation security—and now has 33 million members. In the past few years, it's been ramping up partnerships with major health IT companies and health systems, including Epic, Surescripts, Wellstar, Community Health Network, University of Miami Health and b.well.
The company has worked with Epic on identity verification integration for MyChart, and the company's CLEAR1 platform is "under construction" in Epic’s identity verification for EpicCare Link Toolbox category, which will expand its tech to support the workforce at community health providers.
"We have a deep integration into Epic. Those were huge accelerators for us in working with the Epic customer base that effectively wants to turn our product on, and it's really a modernized way of authenticating," David Bardan, CLEAR's head of healthcare, told Fierce Healthcare.
The Trump administration is pushing for advances in digital health innovation, including efforts to "kill the clipboard” by digitizing check-in and intake. These federal efforts are potential tailwinds for CLEAR to propel its growth in healthcare.
The company signed on to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Health Tech Ecosystem initiative.
"It's really this concept around driving towards a personal health record, and in order to do that, we need the private and public sector to really come together to make this initiative happen. This has been years in the making, ever since the Cures Act was signed. And here we are, fast forward to this time period, and we've got a lot of the inroads of the connections that are available that allow us to actually port data over seamlessly. But in all of that, you need identity and you need consent; we want to make sure that the individual is definitively who they say they are," Bardan said.
CLEAR has achieved Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2)/Authenticator Assurance Level 2 (AAL2), which is a level of identity proofing established by the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST). CLEAR is one of a "handful" of companies that have reached that level of assurance, Bardan asserts.
Bardan says CLEAR has built up a recognized brand name in digital identity with 15 years of experience working with airports at security checkpoints.
"People know us. They trust us. They use us, in many cases, on a day-to-day basis, and the CLEAR1 platform specifically has really intended to go from leveraging the CLEAR product in the airport 12 or so times a year on average, to ideally a few times a day in the way that we're working across different sectors, whether that be healthcare, financial services or other large consumer platforms. We're incredibly excited to meet the moment in healthcare specifically," he said.
Hackensack plans to use the company's identity platform, CLEAR1, via its integration with Epic, to enable MyChart account creation and password reset. Once live, patients will be able to verify their identity with a quick selfie, bypassing legacy solutions and traditional paperwork. This verification process will also be available for patient check-in on kiosks at select Hackensack locations, the health system said.
How Hackensack and TGH plan to use CLEAR
“Hackensack Meridian Health is fundamentally changing what it means to be a patient, starting at the front door,” said Robert Garrett, Chief Executive Officer of Hackensack Meridian Health in a statement. “Our partnership with CLEAR will make the check-in process as simple and secure as CLEAR’s experience at the airport. This is a powerful example of how we leverage world-class technology to enhance the patient experience, improve access, and truly reimagine healthcare for our communities.”
Hackensack plans to first roll out the functionality so patients can easily access their account and health information.
John Theurer Cancer Center (JTCC) at Hackensack University Medical Center also plans to launch a digital check-in for patients using CLEAR's technology. It marks the first cancer center in the country to use this technology, the organizations said.
This technology will also be available at Hackensack Meridian Health and Wellness Center in Eatontown, New Jersey, before expanding more widely across the network. The health system's network includes 18 hospitals and more than 500 patient care locations.
n Florida, Tampa General Hospital is tapping into CLEAR's platform to enhance its existing workforce identity access management system, called PingOne DaVinci. The out-of-the-box integration pairs Ping's flexible identity orchestration with CLEAR1’s biometric verification, enabling TGH to verify who is behind each request, not just the device or credentials they’re using, the organizations said.
The integration, which was deployed in under three weeks, automates password reset for TGH team members, replacing manual help desk calls with a higher-assurance, lower-friction solution, the organizations said.
Tampa General Hospital also plans to expand secure verification for patients through CLEAR’s integration with Epic MyChart.
Providing employees with a faster, easier experience is one key benefit, but fortifying security is a key focus of the partnership, according to the organizations.
As cyber threats grow more sophisticated, particularly social engineering attacks, Tampa General Hospital saw an opportunity to use CLEAR's technology to boost its digital security.
The health system is taking a proactive stance against "sophisticated social engineering tactics, deepfake-enabled impersonation, and credential theft that target IT help desks," TGH said.
The company's CLEAR1 platform is designed to ensure that only the rightful team member can regain access to critical systems to protect patients, workforce and infrastructure, the organizations said.
Team members verify their identity using a government-issued ID and a selfie, creating a reusable, privacy-protected CLEAR identity for future logins and account recoveries. CLEAR collects this information directly from the individual with their explicit consent, and TGH does not store or manage the biometric or identity data.
CLEAR says its CLEAR1 platform offers a multi-layered approach to identity verification, which can include a combination of signals from biometrics, documents and devices. Its biometric matching checks that the person verifying is the same person on the government-issued ID and "liveness detection" confirms the face is live—not a photo, video, or spoof, according to the company.
The company's tech also enables document authenticity to validate that the government-issued ID is real, untampered, and valid as well as source corroboration to cross-check identity data against authoritative third-party databases.
These layers work together to detect anomalies and block threats that could potentially be missed through a singular check, the company claims.
Tampa General Hospital is a 1,529-bed, not-for-profit academic health system that includes three additional hospitals in the area as well as Tampa General Rehabilitation Hospital and Tampa General Behavioral Health Hospital.
The new process cuts down on IT intervention and aligns with Tampa General Hospital's goals to improve operational efficiency and seamless digital access, health system leadership said.
The health system has reported operational and security gains as a result of CLEAR's technology. TGH has automated 80% of account recovery requests, reducing IT intervention and freeing help desk capacity for more complex needs. The time to reset passwords dropped from 4.5 days to 20 minutes, with 99% faster resolution for help desk calls.