Subscribe

Healthcare saves with Equitrac


Johannesburg, 18 Nov 2010

Local Equitrac distributor, Document Accounting Solutions, has launched Equitrac Office 4.2, a software solution that can help healthcare providers secure printing and copying devices, as well as cut administrative costs and support sustainability initiatives.

The company's managing director Russel Roth says Equitrac Office print management software can help healthcare providers power the next generation of care. “The three biggest issues facing healthcare providers today are regulatory compliance, patient record security and cost savings.

“Equally important to the industry is the movement towards waste reduction, sustainability and environmental practices. These issues can be addressed quickly and effectively with Equitrac print management solutions,” he adds.

Using Equitrac features such as Follow-You-Printing, hospital staff can log in or swipe their ID card at a multifunction printer (MFP) in order to release a document for print. Additionally, detailed reporting enables administrators to view who printed what, where, and when, providing an audit trail of the printing process.

Printers and copiers are a big liability to healthcare providers. Unless organisations implement a document output security strategy that helps ensure the privacy of patient protected health information across their entire network, they are putting critical information at risk.

Without controls in place, printers and copiers can be conduits into a system's protected environment. It's vital to know who printed what and when, and just as important to ensure patient health information is never left in output trays.

Beyond security and regulatory concerns, healthcare providers are required to deliver higher quality care with smaller budgets; this is driving them to integrate technologies that empower their facilities to take control of administrative overhead. According industry reports, printing costs can equal up to 3% of an organisation's gross revenue and represent a huge opportunity for savings.

Using Equitrac Office, administrators can enact rules and routing functions that can dictate how and where information is printed. Rules such as forced monochrome and duplex printing can reduce paper output in a typical organisation by almost half in a short period of time.

“Administrators can also route print jobs automatically to the most cost-efficient printer or copier based on the type of job, while features like Follow-You-Printing keep the document in a secure print queue until the user authenticates themselves at the device for output,” says Roth.

Whether a healthcare provider is actively working to reduce their environmental impact or is looking to streamline their workflow, print management is a solution that decreases waste. Equitrac Office provides secure and convenient access to document output devices, wherever they are needed, across the organisation's entire network increasing the flexibility and mobility of nurses, doctors, clinicians, and laboratory technicians.

A comprehensive auditing and reporting system allows administrators to view usage and cost by user or group, and by device or device type. They can then use this information to modify print rules to reduce waste most effectively.

This cost-effective output management solution makes it easy to:

* Add powerful document output security to your HIPAA-compliance framework.
* Ensure the privacy and integrity of patient-protected health information (PHI).
* Provide secure, convenient access to output capabilities.
* Recover allowable print charges.
* Allocate print costs to specific departments or research grants
* Reduce print waste.

Equitrac Office is a best practice solution for document security, increased mobility, cost management, and for environmental sustainability, and will help to bring healthcare providers into the next generation of care.

For more information on the benefits of Equitrac Office for healthcare, please visit www.equitrac.co.za or e-mail info@equitrac.co.za or phone (011) 656-5000.

Share