Opportunity

IU Health was experiencing document related interruptions adversely affecting care-giving processes—from admissions to labs and pharmacies. Process efficiencies IU Health had achieved through implementing an integrated EMR were made vulnerable to delays, placing patient satisfaction at risk.

Solution

IU Health implemented a Cerner-supported output management solution for their 13 facilities. The centralized VPSX® solution facilitates a direct view into all printing, enabling help desk staff to manage document issues in minutes versus hours or days. The solution manages both Cerner® Millennium and charting output while simplifying support requirements and cutting costs including a reduction of 45,000 print queues to a fraction and consolidation of 27 clustered Windows print servers down to two servers. Rich VPSX statistics inform IU Health about who is printing and how much, allowing them to right-size their printer fleet and start reducing volumes.

Fact Summary: VPSX Solution at IU Health

• Facilities: 13 facilities 
• Years in use: 2 years without a performance issue; complete implementation in 2 days
• Failover timeframe: Reduced 20 minutes down to 10 seconds 
• Landscape: Simplified 45,000 queues (8 nodes) down to a small fraction (2 nodes) 
• Savings: Consolidated 27 clustered Windows print servers to 2 servers (saving 25x recurring costs for hardware, software maintenance, and support) 
• Problem resolution: Reduced 3 calls to 1; minimized delays from 2-3 hours down to minutes
• Administration: Enables help desk to manage all printing; can create 500 queues in minutes versus 1 queue per hour (or longer); 
• Volume: 3.4 million to 15 million pages/month
• Document retention: Helped us reduce 360,000 jobs (for 7 days) to 77,000 jobs (for around 12 hours)
• Fleet management: VPSX statistics helps us right size our printer fleet and start reducing volumes

A Conversation with IU Health

Hospital Prospect	Clarian
What issues did you have before using VPSX?	We were experiencing performance issues on clustered Windows print servers. The failover was about 15-20 minutes. Using VPSX, the failover is 10 seconds. The solution also eliminated the need for Windows print servers and practically eliminated failover issues. Our complex environment used 45,000 print queues across 8 fully active nodes. This was simplified down to a fraction of the queues on a 2-node system all in a central place.
Are you installed on Windows or AIX?	Our Cerner applications run on AIX. VPSX takes the AIX spooling system out of the equation. VPSX overcomes the limitation on the number of queues AIX can manage. VPSX also centralizes how the environment is controlled.
How long have they been using VPSX?	About 2 years with no performance issues. They did the full VPSX implementation in 2 days (he explained that they moved a trial installation into production).
How did you roll out VPSX?	We kept the solution “hush, hush.” We didn’t want to promote all the great things IU Health will be able to do with output before we were sure we could deliver. Instead we rolled it out almost feature by feature.
What impact did VPSX have on your end users?	Improved reliability and faster resolution of print issues. The calls to fix a problem went from 3 or more to 1, and the time to fix issues went from an average of 2-3 hours to “on-the fly.” IU Health mentioned that through one central location they can identify exactly what went wrong. When a user calls the help desk asking for a document that was not printed the help desk can open the document and verify the one that is required, then print it from VPSX (IU Health used a face sheet example). IU Health also mentioned how VPSX allows them to move jobs in the queue and change priority, hold some jobs and print others. He noted that clearing a queue now takes only seconds.
Has VPSX positively affected your first call resolution?	Yes. We’ve enabled our help desk to manage all printing. Creation of a print queue was a minimum of 1 hour and could take up to 3 days. IU Health staff now creates 500 queues in minutes and distributes them as needed. Resolution time significantly reduced.
Do you retain documents?	IU Health was retaining 360,000 jobs a day in 5200 VPSX queues. Originally retained jobs for 7 days and hit a hardware limit, now retain about 77,000 for 12 hours.
Do you use VPSX for chart printing?	Yes. We are not on 2007.18 and do not have XR. So, we’ve connected VPSX to chart printing by using an LPD connected printer and it works perfectly. IU Health noted that the VPSX print driver management feature was useful with all Windows-based printing.
Other value?	IU Health explained how they are using VPSX to right-size their printer fleet. Printer volumes and what is printing help inform IU Health about the best make and model for each need. IU Health noted their print volume ranges between 3.4 million to 15 million pages/ monthly. They plan to reduce printing where possible and see need for PageCenterX®document and viewing solution in the future.

 

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