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Industry focus - print management in healthcare

Business Development Director
The healthcare industry is like no other with lives literally hanging in the balance. Providing effective care comes with many healthcare business process challenges such as print services. This article looks at how print management can overcome print services challenges allowing staff to achieve the priority of quality patient care.

Print service challenges in healthcare

Whether it is diagnosing, treating, or preventative programs, healthcare workers need to spend their valuable time carrying out patient care. There are many challenges facing healthcare institutions affected by print services, such as decreased budgets, ensuring regulatory compliance, patient data protection, and many others. The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a change in patient expectations with a drive for convenience and virtual care.
 
Looking specifically at print services, the main challenges include inefficient workflows, securing confidential data, meeting regulatory compliance and a reliance on fax technology. With documents such as patient notes, prescriptions, insurance, and others, there is potential for breaching the HIPAA, GDPR, and other regulations. The fines and damage to reputation come with a high cost. Another challenge of note is where digital patient record systems, such as Epic, can mean the use of certified printers, which increases complexity and IT expense.
   

Healthcare and print management

The right print management solution can address each of the mentioned print services challenges:
 

Regulatory compliance reporting

It doesn’t matter if you are a large hospital, regional network of clinics or ambulatory care, compliance with healthcare regulations is a must. A centralized print management system provides the reporting needed for regulatory compliance. Who printed/copied or scanned what, when and where is tracked automatically and comprehensive, automated reports make meeting compliance audits easier.

YSoft SAFEQ in healthcare
 

Print on any printer

With digital records systems, traditionally staff were allowed to print using certified, costly printers. And with a high price tag, these printers were not always conveniently placed where the need existed. Using a print management system that is integrated with digital patient record systems – like Epic, means that any printer can be used due to the inherent secure nature of print management. This means staff can print anywhere speeding up the use of print services and getting back to patient care faster.
 

Secure print release

Print management systems provide secure printing by requiring the user to authenticate at a printer before documents can be printed. This means confidential patient data does not lay unattended in the output tray. IT can set an auto-delete timer so that print jobs not released are automatically deleted from the print queue. Password-protected PDF files provide additional security on patient records or hospital administrative reports.
 

Integration with Digital Record Systems

Print management systems that can integrate with digital record systems mean that print, scan and fax activity is captured for important reporting and auditing purposes. Print jobs can be held at the printer to satisfy retention policies, auto delete after specified time limits and the status of jobs are visible to the Epic user.
 

Digital Fax

Faxing of documents is still a wide-spread process in healthcare. But it is a process that can be brought into the 21st century by faxing via cloud services.  Traditional analog fax machines or use of VoIP lines is expensive, a burden on IT help desks and even for compliance, you only know that something was sent, not what was sent. Incoming faxes are prone to data exposed to anyone passing the fax machine.

With digital fax integration within print management, incoming and outgoing faxes are digital with more detailed audit reporting. Being digital, it is more reliable than analog/VoiP lines which reduces help desk tickets into IT. Overall, it is more cost effective as well.
 

Y Soft Solutions in Healthcare

YSoft SAFEQ provides the secure print with user authentication required so that documents are not left in output trays. It provides the reporting needed for regulatory compliance and audits. YSoft SAFEQ’s integration with EPIC, the leading digital patient record system, means any printer in the SAFEQ system can be used to print, scan or fax patient records. When adding YSoft SAFQ Digital Fax, fax processes become digital, more secure and more cost effective. Analog fax machines no longer have to be maintained, expensive VoiP lines can be eliminated, and along with that, help desk tickets will be reduced.
 
Drop us a message to learn more about how print management can alleviate print services challenges in your healthcare facilities.
 
Jim Wieser
Jim calls New York home and, when not traveling to visit with partners and customers, he enjoys spending time with his family and scuba diving. As a professional scuba diving trainer and master dive instructor, he is literally under water a lot. When he comes up for air, he can tell you a lot about owning his own businesses and his previous work at OpenText, Xerox and Eastman Kodak.
 
View all posts by Jim Wieser

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