Citizen Health builds a faster, privacy-centric medical record request process using Persona’s NIST IAL2-certified identity proofing solution

Learn how Citizen Health partnered with Persona to make both its users' and support team's lives easier.

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Citizen Health is a free service that empowers patients navigating rare and complex conditions to get more out of their health data and accelerate research for much-needed therapies. By allowing patients to easily gather their medical records in one place through a single request, Citizen Health is able to help patients use records for care management, share records if they want a second opinion or to seek new treatment options, and advance research by opting to share de-identifed data from their records with researchers.

Problem: Citizen Health wanted to make it easier for patients to request their medical records

One of Citizen Health’s main goals is user satisfaction — specifically, figuring out how to onboard patients and seamlessly collect their complete medical records to enable patients to get a full picture of their health. However, as the Citizen Health platform deals with sensitive patient information, it prioritizes the privacy and security of that data — and verifies each individual to ensure they’re actually who they say they are. Unfortunately, this often presents challenges to patients who are not accustomed to uploading their ID or providing a high-fidelity picture of it.

And even once the individual is verified, the process of submitting a medical records request using a traditional approach isn’t much easier. Today, most medical information is siloed, which means records have to be obtained separately from each and every location where the patient has received care. And each location often had its own processes for accepting record requests.  

To streamline the record request process, Citizen Health is preparing to deploy technology to request medical records directly from national and statewide electronic health information exchanges (“Networks”), which will allow patients to obtain records from multiple locations with a single request, consistent with the federal information blocking rules. 

However, processing more automated queries through Networks means meeting a higher bar for identity verification (IDV) during the onboarding process. As such, it needed to find an identity partner that met various Network requirements — specifically one that met digital identity proofing standards set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The fact that Persona was willing to work through the IAL2 certification process for us was a tremendous benefit — we really need it for our future plans.
Sarah Goodell Gesior
Head of Operations at Citizen Health

Solution: Persona’s IAL2 certification allows Citizen Health to connect to Networks.

Citizen Health knew that if it wanted to connect to Networks, it needed to find a certified identity solution that would partner with it to solve both its current and future identity needs. “We needed the expertise and technology to get us to that level of assurance we needed to be at for Network  connectivity,” explains Sarah Goodell Gesior, Citizen Health’s head of operations.

After evaluating several vendors, Citizen Health found Persona through news about our Series B. It decided Persona was the best solution out of all the vendors it interviewed for the following reasons:

NIST IAL2 certification

Identity Assurance Levels (IALs) are a set of standards defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that convey the degree of confidence that someone’s claimed identity is their real identity (i.e. how likely an individual is actually who they say they are).

For Citizen Health, NIST IAL2, which uses digital documents to support the real-world existence of an identity and verifies that the correct person is associated with it, was a non-negotiable. “Many other identity solutions didn’t have it. The fact that Persona was willing to work through the IAL2 certification process for us was a tremendous benefit — we really need it for our future plans,” says Sarah.

With Workflows, our support team should no longer need to handle as many manual reviews. Persona also gives us the flexibility to be more vigilant and implement more checks when we need to.
Sarah Goodell Gesior
Head of Operations at Citizen Health

User experience

As a company committed to helping patients, particularly those with rare disorders, and one that cares deeply about individuals, it’s no surprise that Citizen Health also wanted to ensure the user’s IDV experience was as seamless as possible — especially since it can be extra frustrating trying to get through the process when you’re sick. And after evaluating multiple solutions, it found that “Persona was the easiest to use,” Sarah shares. “We really liked the flow.”

At Persona, we specifically design our solutions to optimize the end-user experience — a priority Citizen Health shares. “Knowing Persona is looking out for the user and constantly striving to make things easier, better, and faster means a lot,” says Sarah.

More than that, Citizen Health appreciated that Persona keeps up with the latest technologies and is constantly improving our product to help businesses convert more good users, fight fraud, and streamline operations. For example, one of their favorite features is the way we make it easy for users to continue their verification session on another device by scanning a QR code. “It’s little touches like this that show Persona’s looking out for the user,” says Sarah. “They’ve put a lot of thought into their UX.”

Partnership

Last but not least, Citizen Health was glad to find a collaborative partner in Persona. In addition to receiving assistance on technical matters, such as how to integrate with its other systems, Citizen Health has benefited from working with a team that consults on best practices for optimizing its verification flows. “I love that Persona works with us through our requests to modify the flow,” shares Sarah. “They’ve been really quick and responsive.”

Persona is working hard to distinguish themselves as best in class in terms of identity verification. They gave us no reason to not use them. They earned it.
Sarah Goodell Gesior
Head of Operations at Citizen Health

Results: With Persona, Citizen Health made both its users’ and support team’s lives easier

In addition to making it possible for Citizen Health to connect to Networks, Persona has also built a more scalable process for Citizen Health’s support team. “Having technology that allows us to send users a link to capture their ID anywhere is really cool. It’s made support’s job easier in that regard,” Sarah explains.

Additionally, Citizen Health is excited to continue working with Persona to streamline processes in the future. “With Workflows, our support team should no longer need to handle as many manual reviews,” says Sarah. “Persona also gives us the flexibility to be more vigilant and implement more checks when we need to.”

While Citizen Health’s main criteria for an identity partner was NIST IAL2 certification, it ultimately gained much more with Persona. “Persona is working hard to distinguish themselves as best in class in terms of identity verification,” Sarah shares. “They gave us no reason to not use them. They earned it.”

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