There are few things worse than a stolen identity. Ruined financial health for life and tanked company value are among the worst-case scenarios for identity-theft victims. That's why passwords are still an essential part of ID protection.

At Vitas Healthcare Corp., with operations across 15 states, 6,000 employees are protected by passwords as they access multiple databases, most containing financial and health-care information. But after they log on to the network each day, they can encounter half a dozen passwords for the different databases they need to work with.

"We get constant feedback from users as we make changes to security, and we try to maintain all [security processes and passwords] as the users need 10 different places to get access to what they need," says John Sandbrook, senior IT director at Vitas. "Our help desk spends 30% of their time on password management and provisioning."

So Vitas is in the process of deploying the Fischer Identity Management Suite 2.0 software product from Fischer International to help manage passwords and comply with regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The ID-management product includes automated audit and reporting capabilities, compliance, separation of duties enforcement, and a common platform for password management, provisioning, and self-service.

Sandbrook implemented Fischer in September. "We expect to cut help-desk support time for passwords down to about 5%," Sandbrook says. "As a large health-care company, our users face a lot of real issues and support tasks, and our IT personnel will be able to provide better support to the user base."