It begins with one thing easy: a printout that’s by no means picked up. It may very well be a affected person document, a discharge abstract, or a remedy plan. In a healthcare setting, the place affected person knowledge privateness is paramount, an unattended piece of paper on a paper tray might turn out to be a major safety danger.
And but, as hospitals and clinics endure digital transformation, print continues to be an unlucky blind spot in lots of organizations’ safety and compliance methods. Within the face of tightening laws, evolving care fashions, and an increase in distant work, there has by no means been a larger have to construct auditability and management into on a regular basis workflows – all whereas maintaining affected person care transferring.
The hidden dangers of print
The obvious danger with regards to print is knowledge breaches. Whereas this would possibly conjure up photos of exterior hackers, essentially the most sensible forms of knowledge breaches are typically inadvertent and inside. IT groups can implement firewalls and entry controls in opposition to exterior brokers, however printed pages left unattended, misdirected print jobs, and lack of person authentication on the printer are all frequent weak factors that may put affected person belief and security on the road. And as compliance necessities develop more and more sophisticated underneath frameworks like HIPAA and GDPR, small dangers can result in reputational and financial liabilities.
One other situation is workflow friction and fragmentation. The pandemic accelerated the decentralization of healthcare, the rise of cellular workforces, and the adoption of cloud-first options – all of which have added complexity to hospital IT infrastructure. It’s not unusual to see massive healthcare organizations grappling with competing priorities from totally different departments, a number of digital well being document (EHR) methods, and legacy print options that may’t sustain with the calls for of a busy office.
Even when they’re conscious that enhancements must be made, it’s extremely troublesome to implement fixes with out downtime that disrupts affected person care — successfully they’re constructing the automotive whereas they’re driving it. As an infinite healthcare group, you may’t simply pull every part aside and begin from scratch.
What optimized print infrastructure appears to be like like
So as an alternative of making an attempt to fully reimagine printing, I see the push to modernize healthcare methods opening a window for addressing print infrastructure. Even when print isn’t the motive force of main infrastructure initiatives, it’s virtually all the time concerned. Each time a corporation adjusts a system, performs with workflows, does an integration, there’s a chance to ask how they will enhance print on this piece of the puzzle.
For instance, we’re at present working with a distinguished educational medical heart within the US, who’s shifting their infrastructure to personal cloud. Whereas print wasn’t the main target, it grew to become important to person authentication and an unbroken audit path. In one other massive healthcare firm switching to Chrome OS, they discovered that their present print vendor didn’t help fundamental workflow wants.
However what would a very compliant print infrastructure embody? Whereas the main target is all the time on prioritizing care, you continue to have to inch your tech stack ahead with effectivity, safety, and redundancy as core pillars. Authentication is a very essential a part of this, making certain print jobs can solely be launched by the approved person. It needs to be baked into each step: there are software program and {hardware} layers that require customers to authenticate earlier than accessing any utility.
However the important thing ingredient is auditability; monitoring who printed what, the place, and when. It’s the one low-effort, high-impact change that may make an enormous distinction with regards to enhancing compliance. With detailed audit trails, IT groups can spot points, hint knowledge flows, and handle dangers — making compliance not simply simpler, however smarter.
Getting compliance and clinicians on the identical web page
In the end, any know-how in a healthcare setting is there to assist frontline staff do their job – prioritizing clinicians’ workflows, not including friction. After all, the fact is that organizations should additionally meet compliance necessities to verify their sufferers are protected, so it’s about getting the steadiness proper.
To this finish, I like to recommend focusing first on usability: delivering a constant printing expertise, no matter which endpoint the person is uncovered to. The opposite non-negotiable is interoperability, making certain print administration software program integrates with different methods. Clinicians can nonetheless use their regular purposes to supply care, whereas a print administration answer is working arduous behind the scenes to allow that with out impacting the person’s expertise.
Take a workstation on wheels, for instance. It’s one thing you’re taking without any consideration once you go right into a hospital. However the complexity behind offering that mobility is immense; it entails enabling person switching whereas making certain correct and exact entry management, authentication, monitoring and auditing. And this all has to occur seamlessly so the person doesn’t even discover; it’s not holding up their workflow whereas they’re signing out and in of varied purposes.
So, after we design our options, we’re wanting on the world that clinicians work in and the actual duties they’re making an attempt to carry out. We don’t wish to get in the way in which of that; what we’re doing is constructing software program that can dwell and breathe with them. Good software program doesn’t interrupt the workflow – it helps it.
Print because the frequent denominator
Print might not be essentially the most thrilling a part of a healthcare tech stack. However as a result of it’s a commonality throughout all departments – everybody must print one thing at some stage – print administration really turns into a solution to coordinate the larger image. Understanding that print is the top level to your workflow means you may construct backwards, utilizing print as a lens to guage safety and compliance throughout your total group.
The auditability that print administration methods present is crucial to assembly compliance and regulatory necessities. Put merely, should you’re at nighttime, you may’t hint what’s occurred alongside the chain. With a transparent audit path, you can begin setting up insurance policies and methods to drive the continual enchancment of your total ecosystem, but it surely begins and ends with print.
About Matt Buttrey
Mat spends a lot of his working hours listening to healthcare companions and prospects all over the world. This strategy is pushed by his pursuit of technical excellence in print administration software program for the healthcare trade. Mat arrange PaperCut Software program’s devoted healthcare staff in 2019 and continues to champion the innovation round printing, scanning, and faxing inside the healthcare world.
