Sunrise Health Region Safeguards Patient Confidentiality with UniPrint Infinity™

The Organization

Sunrise Health Region (SHR) is one of 13 health regions in Saskatchewan, Canada. It is responsible for delivering quality healthcare to approximately 60,000 people through 22 facilities.

Services include acute care, long-term care, community services, public health and mental health.

SHR houses a complex IT department deploying a Windows operating system, and a Citrix thin client server farm managing centralized clinical applications shared with 12 other publicly funded health regions.

3,000 SHR staff connect to the IT center, remotely accessing various applications such as pharmacy, electronic medical records (EMR), payroll, and scheduling, and printing locally to 300 shared printers.

The Challenge

The very nature of healthcare delivery creates unique challenges when it comes to the basic yet inevitable task of printing; not the least of which is complying with government mandates that safeguard patient confidentiality.

SHR had implemented an IT environment that enabled staff to access their own desktop from any computer terminal using smart cards.

But, the printing function was less dynamic. As staff accompanied patients through various hospital departments, essential documentation would not necessarily be printed at the closest or most appropriate printer.

The result was an inefficient use of printing resources and the potential compromise of patient information privacy.

More importantly, it added to the administrative burdens placed on clinical staff.

In early 2011, SHR made the decision to look for a healthcare printing solution that would safeguard patient confidentiality, improve productivity and begin moving printing capabilities toward a managed print solution.

Additionally, it wanted to minimize incompatibility issues by simplifying printer driver management and assigning printers by department to increase security and print speed, and reduce costs.

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The Solution

SHR started its search for a “follow-me” printing solution so staff could print from different locations and send confidential documents to the closest or the most appropriate printer.

Because of its complex IT setup, SHR needed a solution that could be installed and operated independently from the shared remote server farm because its IT staff did not have administrative rights to the shared applications.

Sheranga Jayasinghe, SHR’s Director, Information Technology, decided that a universal printer driver (UPD) was the critical requirement.

“Whenever we introduced a new printer into the environment, we had to install it on the print server and about fifteen additional Citrix servers. It would take hours of certification and processing to ensure the drivers in our Citrix farm found compatibility with the remote applications. We soon saw that UniPrint’s UPD would simplify our approach, reduce help desk calls and alleviate the burdens on our IT staff.”

At this point SHR began to look for a managed print solution that would add value by addressing three main requirements: follow-me printing capabilities, ‘departmental’ printing and a UPD.

Jayasinghe continued, “No other vendor was able to provide these capabilities in one solution. UniPrint provided a truly universal printer driver, one print queue via their Virtual Print Queue technology and a vPad user authentication device for added security, and it worked right out of the box.”

SHR acted as a beta site for UniPrint Infinity’s new secure pull printing functionality, which goes beyond “follow-me” printing with its PrintPAL utility, giving administrators the ability to centrally manage printer assignments per department or per user and map printers based on location.

“When we implemented UniPrint Infinity, we received incredibly positive feedback,” explains Jayasinghe. “Printing has become much more streamlined and efficient. Infinity operates independently from the remote server farm with no negative effects on the other health regions or shared applications.”

The Benefits

SHR is currently in the process of deploying UniPrint Infinity to all of its users. Based on the results seen so far, it expects a dramatic return on investment and intangible cost savings including a reduction in support tickets and decreased employee time spent troubleshooting printer driver problems.

UniPrint has simplified IT management, improved productivity and most importantly, provided a secure pull printing solution that safeguards patient data and promotes compliance with government-mandated confidentiality requirements.

Another crucial benefit is the ability to authenticate users on the printer-vendor independent vPad instead of at the printer.

Without this feature, which is unique to UniPrint Infinity, SHR would not have been able to optimize many of its legacy printers which didn’t have display units. And, future hardware purchases would have been severely limited to include only printers that had them.

Key Benefits Include:

• Anywhere, anytime, any device secure pull printing
• Elimination of printer management issues, simplifying IT administration
• Printer-vendor independent
• Simple to install and easy to integrate
• User authentication devices and encryption control resulting in increased security
• Increased operational efficiency and improved employee productivity
• Non-intrusive in network environments
• Fully compatible with smart card readers; can incorporate RFID, HID and FOB devices
• Professional, proactive support and total commitment from the UniPrint technical team