Background:

A large healthcare system in the southern United States provides patient care through multiple hospitals, dozens of clinics, and an extensive network of outpatient and telehealth locations. The organization operates with hundreds of patient beds and relies on Epic as its electronic health record (EHR) platform.

As a long-time Plus Technologies’ customer, the healthcare system initially used OM Plus technology to support secure prescription printing across approximately 250 printers.

As its print environment and operational requirements evolved, the organization began looking for additional opportunities to improve the efficiency, security, visibility, and administration of its enterprise print infrastructure.

The Challenge:

Managing printing across a large healthcare environment presents unique challenges. Prescription printing must be secure and reliable, while sensitive patient and business information must be protected throughout the printing process.

At the same time, IT administrators must manage thousands of printers, printer drivers, end-user printing requirements, and output generated by critical applications such as Epic.

The organization wanted to build upon its existing secure prescription printing environment while gaining additional capabilities to:

  • Improve prescription printing security
  • Simplify printer and printer driver management
  • Reduce print administrator labor
  • Protect sensitive documents left unattended at printers
  • Gain greater visibility into enterprise printing activity
  • Identify opportunities to reduce printing costs
The Solution:

Building on its existing relationship with Plus Technologies, the healthcare system expanded its OM Plus environment to incorporate several complementary print and output management solutions.

OM Plus Tamper Resistant Printing (TRP):

The relationship began with OM Plus Tamper Resistant Printing (TRP) to support secure prescription printing.

TRP enables healthcare organizations to generate tamper-resistant prescription documents using standard plain paper, helping protect prescriptions against unauthorized alteration, copying, and fraud while simplifying the prescription printing environment.

The healthcare system’s prescription printing environment has since expanded from approximately 250 printers to approximately 450 printers.

Enterprise Print Manager (EPM):

The organization later implemented Enterprise Print Manager (EPM) to improve printer and driver management.

EPM centralizes the administration of printers and drivers, helping IT teams reduce the labor associated with maintaining a large Windows printing environment. The healthcare system deployed EPM across an environment of approximately 2,500 printers.

By simplifying printer deployment and driver management, EPM helps reduce administrative effort while providing users with a more consistent printing experience.

My-Print-Delivery (MPD):

 

The healthcare system also added My-Print-Delivery (MPD), Plus Technologies’ secure pull print solution.

Instead of documents printing immediately and potentially remaining unattended in an output tray, MPD holds the print job until the authorized end-user is physically at the printer and releases it.

This capability is particularly valuable in healthcare environments, where printed documents may contain sensitive patient information. Secure print release helps protect that information while also reducing unnecessary or abandoned print jobs.

Stats Manager (SM):

To gain greater visibility into enterprise printing, the organization added Stats Manager (SM).

Stats Manager captures detailed information about printing activity, providing administrators with insight into the who, what, and when of printing.

This information allows the healthcare system to better understand print volumes and usage patterns, identify areas of excessive printing, and uncover potential opportunities for additional cost savings.

Implementation and Expansion:

The customer’s relationship with Plus Technologies demonstrates how an enterprise print management environment can evolve over time.

What began as secure prescription printing for approximately 250 printers has expanded into a broader print management strategy incorporating EPM, MPD, and SM across an environment of approximately 2,500 printers. Prescription printing requirements have also grown to approximately 450 printers.

Enterprise Print Manager has been in production for more than a year, providing centralized printer and driver management capabilities.

As a future phase, the organization plans to further modernize its Epic back-end printing environment using OM Plus Delivery Manager (DM). The planned architecture will use Epic’s Print API to deliver prescription and other Epic-generated print jobs through OM Plus. Additional Epic back-end print queues and MPD functionality are also expected to transition to the Delivery Manager Infrastructure.

Results:

By Expanding its use of Plus Technologies solutions, the healthcare system has created a more comprehensive approach to enterprise print management.

The environment now provides:

  • Secure tamper-resistant prescription printing
  • Support for approximately 450 prescription printers
  • Centralized printer and driver management across approximately 2,500 printers
  • Reduced printer administration and driver management labor
  • Secure print release for documents containing sensitive information
  • Greater visibility into enterprise print activity
  • Print statistics that can help identify additional cost-saving opportunities
  • A scalable foundation for future Epic output management requirements

Rather than addressing prescription printing, end-user printing, printer administration, and print analytics as separate challenges, the organization can use Plus Technologies solutions to create a more unified print management strategy.

Conclusion:

Large healthcare organizations require print infrastructure that is secure, reliable, manageable, and capable of supporting complex clinical and administrative enviroments.

By combining OM Plus Tamper Resistant Printing (TRP), Enterprise Print Manager (EPM), My-Print-Delivery (MPD), Stats Manager (SM), and OM Plus Delivery Manager (DM), Plus Technologies can provide healthcare organizations with an integrated approach to managing prescription printing, end-user printing, print security, printer administration, and output visibility.

As this healthcare system’s requirements have grown, its Plus Technologies environment has expanded with them-providing a flexible platform capable of supporting both today’s printing requirements and future Epic output management initiatives.

Learn More:

For more information about Plus Technologies’ healthcare printing solutions, Epic output management, secure prescription printing, pull printing, or enterprise printer management-or to request a free technical demonstration or evaluation-please contact Plus Technologies.