The Invisible Costs of Healthcare Printing to consider
Did you know? The average hospital spends around $3.8 million dollars a year on printing. The Healthcare industry may wonder how they can reduce these costs or where all the money spent on printers is coming from. In this article, we will explore printing costs that may fall through the cracks for the healthcare business and what can be done to keep costs low while ensuring medical professionals can still get the prints that they need.
Centralize your Print Management
The less managed your printer environment is the more your expenses will creep up on your business. Many medical businesses that don’t have a print management system in place will end up with excessive amounts of printing. This can be anything from duplicate admission forms, patient records, and even prescriptions. While it may seem minor these costs quickly add up overtime, and if multiple employees do this your costs will increase rapidly. Especially if you are a healthcare business housing multiple printers in various locations.
Investing in managed print software, such as PaperCut can really help your business gain control by offering tracking and monitoring capabilities. Your business will be able to see where excessive printing could happen, and it can help in identifying what departments or groups may need to have limitations. Additionally, PaperCut can set up rules and regulations that will require user authentication and locking out certain options from users. You can also set up whether pages can only be printed in b/w or colored, helping in reducing ink and/or toner usage. These features will allow you to centralize your print management, greatly reduce costs, and bring structured workflow to the business.
Security & Compliance
In the healthcare sector compliance with the law is an absolute must. It is required that a patient's records are safeguarded and remain private. Without a secure printing system in place, this runs the risk of data being leaked and viewed by people who shouldn't be viewing them. Imagine printing a patient record and then having that paper sit on the printer, it can be a very common occurrence as in many cases in the health industry doctors can easily be pulled away on various urgent tasks.
If the health industry doesn’t remain HIPAA compliant, which can happen from records falling into the wrong hands. It will cause a lot of unexpected expenses for the company. This doesn't even factor in the reputation of the company tanking either. If customers found out that your business had such an impact, they will lose a lot of trust in your company. The healthcare industry is a very important line of work, customers want to know that they can feel safe and protected with their healthcare provider.
Managed Print Service ensures consistent workflow
A hidden cost often not taken into consideration is the amount of time that a medical professional may end up wasting at the actual printer. Outdated printers, especially those with no regular maintenance support, can cause hiccups and other performance issues. This will cause users to struggle or often wait on the printer to produce the prints they need. Healthcare professionals have more pressing tasks to tackle, they can't be held up at the printer or deal with delaying patient information.
This is where a Managed Print Service will assist in ensuring printers don't end up being the cause of disruptive workflow. They will routinely provide maintenance support so that your office equipment is performing its best at all times. Additionally, MPS provides tracking software that can monitor toner and supply usage. This means that healthcare industries can be notified when their printer gets low, sending automatic notices and shipping supplies so that they can arrive just in time for replacement.
In summary, the healthcare industry is very prominent in its printing. From needing patient records, prescriptions, and much more. Having centralized print management software and a managed print service is vital to ensure efficient secure workflow that can remain HIPAA compliant and represent a professional medical environment. As a result, you will be able to catch expenses and have better control of your business to ensure hidden or unexpected costs don't come about. If interested in learning more about how you can save on your printer environment. Considering reaching out to Summit Technology, our experts will do a thorough free assessment and see what tools can work best for your business.