In a world of cloud-based EHRs, patient portals, and real-time clinic dashboards, it’s easy to forget that the humble printed page continues to play a vital role in patient safety and regulatory compliance in hospitals and allied health clinics.
It’s been such a stable feature that many healthcare facilities have maintained their print environment for decades, which turns out to be a missed opportunity when it comes to the advantages of print reporting and analytics.
Clinical clarity at the point of care
In fast-moving clinical settings, clarity and speed are the names of the game. And printed reports (pathology results, medication charts, theatre lists, or discharge summaries) all provide a stable, distraction-free reference at the bedside.
For instance, printed summaries are still used in ward rounds and multidisciplinary meetings. A printed pathology report can be annotated by a consultant during discussion and circulated quickly, without the hassle of logins, tech issues, or screen sharing.
In critical care units, a simple printout clipped to a patient’s chart allows nurses to verify lab results or medication changes at a glance, even during IT downtime. It’s why hospitals and clinics still rely so heavily on printed material.
Put simply: it works.
“Between patient forms, prescriptions, referrals, and treatment plans, paper isn’t going away in healthcare any time soon”, says Mat Buttrey, PaperCut’s Senior Product Manager & Strategic Lead.
Additionally, many of these documents contain Protected Health Information (PHI) as defined by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which mandates strict control over the creation, storage, and transmission of patient data.
Visibility into who prints what – and why
Printing is important in healthcare; that’s a given. Unfortunately, problems tend to creep in when that printing happens with limited tracking – and at scale.
Large healthcare networks can operate thousands of printers across wards, outpatient facilities, and admin offices, churning out millions of pages a year. At those volumes, and without detailed reporting, it’s almost impossible to understand print behavior by department or device. And even small inefficiencies can add up to serious money.
It’s why modern print management systems generate such granular analytics.
Things like:
- Pages printed per user, or per department
- Color versus black-and-white usage
- Print volume by time of day
- Frequency of reprints
- Uncollected (abandoned) print jobs
In a healthcare setting, this data can sometimes reveal surprising patterns. For example, analytics may show one unit is printing way more color pages than comparable departments. With reporting visibility, managers can adjust print policies to default to black-and-white for certain document types, reducing consumable costs straight off the bat.
Equally important is tracking reprints. If pathology results are frequently printed multiple times from different workstations, it may signal workflow friction or poor system integration. Print reporting transforms these kinds of anecdotal concerns into actual, measurable data.
Better print management translates into less waste and lower costs. With centralized print management, IT admins gain end-to-end visibility and control over the print environment, administering the entire fleet of printers, devices, and users from a single dashboard.
- Mat Buttrey, PaperCut
Reducing print waste through secure release and job tracking
Uncollected print jobs are often a hidden source of waste in healthcare.
In busy stations, clinicians may hit ‘print’ and then get called away to an urgent situation. The document hangs around in the output tray, often in full view of any random passer-by, and probably gets trashed by whoever uses that printer next.
This is where secure print release comes in. Secure print release basically means that whenever a staff member prints a document, that document stays in the print queue until it’s authorized and ‘released’ in person at the MFD.
This has two benefits for healthcare:
- You waste less paper and toner on print jobs that no one even collects.
- You strengthen your print governance and regulatory compliance, because sensitive documents have to be verified by their owner before they even hit the paper tray.
To assist with HIPAA compliance, healthcare organizations need to be able to track who is printing what,” Buttrey says. “Which is why many healthcare organizations implement secure print release: with this feature, print jobs are held in a queue until the user authenticates at the device with a badge, PIN code, or other sign-on.
From a compliance standpoint, job tracking also creates an audit trail. With a single click, admins can see who printed a patient discharge summary (as well as when and at what device). Given healthcare’s strict privacy regulations, this can be a lifesaver.
Boosting your information governance
Healthcare data is maybe the most sensitive information managed by any industry anywhere. Print analytics contribute directly to information governance by providing traceability for that data.
They’re a breadcrumb trail that admins (and eventually auditors) can track. You can layer this as deeply as you like, up to and including things like watermarks and digital signatures .
If the worst happens, and a data breach investigation does arise, administrators can quickly identify whether a document was printed, by whom, and on which device. Without reporting, investigations like this rely on manual reconstruction, which is both time-consuming and generally pretty unreliable.
From reactive printing to proactive management
The true value of print reporting in healthcare, however, lies in what we think is more of a cultural shift, from reactive cost control to proactive optimization.
Put it this way: instead of responding to budget overruns or paper shortages, with print management software healthcare facilities can benchmark departments against one another, forecast user trends, and accurately anticipate supply needs.
Advanced analytics platforms can even integrate print data with broader operational dashboards, correlating print volumes with things like patient throughput or seasonal demand. For instance, spikes in emergency department activity may align with increased wristband and discharge document printing, which is something admins should be tracking.
Understanding these patterns supports smarter procurement and staffing decisions, which means you’re able to make strategic decisions based on hard data, rather than hunches and best guesses.
A cloud-based print management system offers centralized oversight, which is especially valuable for healthcare networks spread across multiple sites, simplifying administration and ensuring consistent print security.
Integrating print systems with identity and access management (IAM) aligns printing with broader IT policy, an approach that strengthens HIPAA compliance.
- Mat Buttrey, PaperCut
The fact is, printing in healthcare isn’t going to disappear.
Clinical workflows, regulatory requirements, and day-to-day patient needs mean that paper will likely always be part of the system in some form. What is changing is the level of visibility and control organizations expect from their print network.
By investing in robust print reporting and analytics allowing visibility of tracking jobs, waste, device utilization, and user behavior, hospitals and clinics can transform print from a hidden expense into a measurable, optimizable asset.
And that’s good for your health.
