Abbott Diabetes Care is a division of the global healthcare company Abbott. They develop breakthrough products for people living with diabetes and manufacture and ship millions of diabetes management products each year, including continuous glucose monitors—their FreeStyle Libre products—along with ketone and blood glucose monitors.

When Abbott Diabetes Care hit a six-year growth spurt, they realized it was becoming harder to oversee the flow of employees and visitors entering and leaving their facilities. It was an opportunity to upgrade their visitor management system (VMS) with a provider that could better manage onsite foot traffic while upholding their strict data integrity policies.

Antiquated solution creates delays and security gaps

Abbott Diabetes Care was stuck with a visitor check-in process that was more complicated and manual than necessary, leading to frustration and inefficiencies. Their VMS was outdated and painfully slow. To make matters worse, their staff had to administer handwritten visitor passes—something that caused delays and raised serious concerns for the security team.

"We're a leader in our industry, and I'm writing a pass for someone. It just felt so archaic," said Michelle Longson, Program Manager at Abbott Diabetes Care. "We weren't able to do any checks and balances. We couldn't even generate a report that showed which people were onsite." 

As a result, the Abbott team faced a few key challenges:

• Tedious visitor experience. Handwritten passes slowed everything down. The result? Lengthy check-in times, countless hours of wasted administrative work, and a lackluster visitor experience.
• Limited identity screening capabilities. They didn’t have a reliable way to verify or track visitor identities in real time. Their old VMS made it challenging to cross-check visitor information across locations and lacked key features like blocklists or watchlists to flag high-risk individuals.
• Strict data privacy guidelines. As a healthcare organization, Abbott has to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Data Privacy Framework (DPF), which require strict control and monitoring of who has access to sensitive patient data. However, their previous system made it difficult to consistently track and manage visitor data across 50+ locations. This created challenges when preparing audit-ready visitor records and proving compliance with these standards.

A modern and automated approach to visitor management

After speaking with Envoy's team, Longson was impressed by their level of service and expertise. “I could see they were the 'Goldilocks' fit,” she said. “Together, I felt we could meet and exceed the challenges and expectations of our visitor management process.”

With Envoy Visitors, Abbott Diabetes Care found a visitor management solution that checked all the boxes:

• They could develop an organized, simplified visitor check-in process that stayed within budget.
• It was a flexible, cloud-based platform that didn’t require complete access to Abbott’s network.
• Envoy offers the ability to add people to blocklists and verify visitors’ identities against third-party watch lists.

“Before, it felt like we were still in the dinosaur ages. Envoy has brought us out of that."

Frictionless visitor experiences

Adopting Envoy has allowed Abbott Diabetes Care to achieve a safer, more streamlined visitor experience that scales with their growth. They can now host huge conferencing events, facilitate 100+ member employee meetings, and support all-hands meetings with staff from international campuses—with a lot less work and complexity.

“We’ve hosted both international and domestic meetings, and having the ability to send employees invites and notifications has created a streamlined process for us,” Longson said. “When visitors arrive, they love being able to go up to our kiosks, get their badge, and have a picture printed.”

Envoy Visitors has also improved workplace security for Abbott’s teams and vendors. Security staff are better equipped to handle high-risk situations, track flagged visitors, and add photos or key details to visitor passes, keeping everyone informed and safe.

Audit-ready digital visitor logs

Envoy Visitors enables the Abbott team to do more than protect data—it has also automated the process of maintaining and storing visitor logs. Envoy automatically collects and stores each guest's details (full name, purpose for their visit, copy of their photo ID, timestamps for check-in and check-out, etc.), ensuring their records are easily accessible and accurate in case of an audit.

“No more digging through piles of documents to track visitors or employees,” Longson added. “Auditors can confidently walk onto our site, knowing we have a clear, accurate record of everyone who’s come and gone that day.”

This confidence is driven by Envoy’s suite of integrations, particularly those with employee directories. “I don’t have to do any manual input for adding or removing personnel,” Longson said. “Whenever someone joins or leaves, the system updates automatically to reflect the change.”

“We take data privacy very seriously. We’re committed to following the Data Privacy Framework and protecting all personal data. Envoy helps us uphold those standards by ensuring best practices are met and that all customer data is transferred securely.”

Further expansion across more locations

Longson "definitely" recommends Envoy to other healthcare organizations and sees opportunities to expand its use across more Abbott enterprises. Plans are underway to add new safety features, integrate with Microsoft tools, and bring additional Abbott teams onto the platform, either within the existing system or through new instances.