Healthcare printing comes with some obvious costs. Think printers, toner, and electricity. But there are also some less obvious ones. And like most things when you do them at scale, itās the little invisible costs that really get you in the end. Theyāre the ones that can quietly drain a budgetāor disrupt a balance sheet.
Hereās how to identifyāand fixāthe hidden costs of healthcare printing.
Escalating financial burden due to unmanaged printing
By āescalating financial burdenā, we mean that healthcare printing is a volume game, so any small waste or workflow inefficiencies tend to balloon and multiply, far beyond their original scope. This is obviously bad for business.
Considering the average hospital spends around $3.8m a year on printing , if even 10% of that printing is unnecessary it could result in substantial financial waste. Hospitals and clinics that lack centralized print management often experience excessive printing of patient records, prescriptions, and admin forms. Weāve found the general rule to be: the less you monitor your printing, the more people tend to print.
Productivity losses due to inefficient workflows
In the age of AI and Amazon, āproductivityā in reference to people can have negative connotations, but all it really means is: is there something better your staff could be doing with their time? When it comes to healthcare workers and printing, the answer is: almost definitely.
Outdated and unreliable print systems can cause delays in accessing critical documents, hindering patient care and staff productivity. One study found that nurses in particular spend a lot of time troubleshooting printer issues, which reduces time spent on patient care (in other words, their primary responsibility).
In emergency departments, delays in receiving lab results and discharge paperwork can slow patient turnover, meaning fewer patients can be seen. Deploying reliable, high-speed printers with automated failover printing and centralised helpdesk management will help you improve your level of patient care.
Increased IT support and maintenance costs
This is one of the more invisible costs of healthcare printing: maintenance. And this is especially true for organizations hosting their own physical print servers. Frequent printer malfunctions and complex print environments demand substantial specialist IT support, diverting resources from more critical tasks and horizon-level strategic thinking. Upgrading server racks, troubleshooting users, fixing broken-down printers, unjamming paper jams; all those hours add up.
Many healthcare organizations experience high printer downtime due to unmanaged fleets and inconsistent maintenance. Adopting a robust healthcare print solution is one of the best ways to eliminate pesky helpdesk tickets .
Security vulnerabilities and compliance risks
The healthcare industry obviously comes with very specific legislative requirements when it comes to patient data, privacy, and network security. These arenāt just guidelines, theyāre mandatory, carrying significant risks in terms of fines and reputational damage.
Unsecured printing processes can expose sensitive patient information, leading to potential data breaches and non-compliance with regulations like HIPAA. The solution? A robust print management setup, with all the security bells and whistles, including
secure print release
,
multi-factor authentication
, centralized user access controls, real-time monitoring and security alerts, and end-to-end print data encryption.
Exposing your hospital or healthcare organization to expensive fines and negative headlines is a risk that tends to go unnoticedāuntil itās a crisis.
Excessive paper waste and the financial and environmental impact
Inefficient print management contributes to unnecessary paper consumption, which means both a ton of environmental harmāpaper makes up about 26% of all landfillāand increased operational expenses.
In large hospital networks, unclaimed print jobs and redundant printing of medical records can lead to substantial waste, not to mention storage issues. In 2023, UK national newspaper The Times accessed records for NHS England, which showed that hospitals spent more than Ā£234 million ($284 million) on the storage of paper medical records in the year to April 2022. Thatās an incredible amount of printing and filing, and admin overhead. Healthcare print management helps answer a simple yet valuable question. How much of that printingāand storageāis truly necessary?
Hidden expenses from low-quality consumables
Using substandard printer consumables may seem cost-effective initially, but it can lead to poor print quality, increased printer wear, and even voided warranties, ultimately escalating costs. We want to avoid that. The general rule with printing is that you get what you pay for, and skimping on consumables is usually a false economy.
Environmental and sustainability concerns
Weāve covered paper and consumables, but how about energy usage? Excessive and inefficient printing contributes to environmental degradation by consuming a huge amount of energy. Most commercial laser printers draw about 300-500 watts when printing, and 30-50 watts on standby. This should tell us two things. One, we only want to print when we have to (see paper waste, above). And two, you want to invest in an energy efficient printer fleet.
Healthcare organizations adopting paperless initiatives and electronic health record (EHR) systems have significantly reduced their environmental impact. Weāve also written before about how to reduce your printer energy consumption in order to shrink your carbon footprint.
Impact on patient care and satisfaction
Patient care and satisfaction donāt appear on a balance sheet, but they are crucial metrics for any healthcare organization, especially private ones that need to remain profitable. Delays and errors in printing essential medical documents can adversely affect patient care and satisfaction. Patients waiting for discharge paperwork, prescriptions, or test results may experience extended hospital stays due to slow printing processes. And no one wants that.
Challenges in managing distributed printing environments
Healthcare organizations with multiple locations often struggle with what we call dispersed print infrastructure. In other words, printers all over the place. Double the trouble if those printers are a mix of new MFDs and less-efficient legacy models, forming an expensive and wildly inefficient mixed fleet.
All of this leads to inefficiencies and increased costs. And theyāre often the costs you donāt see: increased IT hours, frustrated employees, invisible double-ups of labor, printing the same document multiple times, miscommunications that need to be untangled, affecting productivity. The general rule is this. The more distributed the print environment, the more streamlined your fleet needs to be, and the more central control you need.
As weāve covered, inefficient printing in healthcare goes well beyond the obvious costs of paper and toner. The impacts can be felt on budgets, staff productivity, security, and even patient care.
By addressing hidden inefficiencies, such as excessive print waste, outdated infrastructure, and dispersed print environments, healthcare organizations can streamline operations, enhance security, and reduce unnecessary costs. Implementing a robust print management strategy is not just a financial decision; itās an investment in better healthcare delivery.
If you want to regain control of your printing, itās time to learn why PaperCut is beloved by healthcare businesses across the world.
