Countries in Scandinavia are known for offering extensive social services to their residents. Among the most important of these services include hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare institutions that provide care for the physical and mental health of a country or region’s citizens.

In one large Nordic country, responsibility for providing healthcare services is divided among more than 20 geographical regions. Over a decade ago, a strategic decision was made to modernize the systems that track and manage healthcare processes. Two of the most populous regions in the country chose to implement the Oracle Health EHR solution from the USA-based software company Oracle Health. Chosen for its proven scalability and rich functionality, the Oracle Health EHR product was viewed as a good fit for this critical project.

Implementing EMR software in large, diverse environments is always difficult, and delivering patient care-related documents can present a particularly hard challenge. Large printer fleets typically include many device models from multiple print hardware manufacturers, each with different capabilities and potentially different drivers. Special fonts, barcodes, paper handling options and other variables further complicate reliable print delivery.

The Challenge

Patient care in this client’s region is delivered by a combination of public and private healthcare providers covering more than 25,000 square kilometers and 1.7 million residents. By implementing the Oracle Health EHR solution, the customer hoped to provide a high, uniform level of care across this large population. However, organizational and technology differences across the region presented numerous print challenges, including:

• Many device makes & models in the organization’s 20,000+ printer fleet n Inability of many devices to handle the PostScript data streams created by the Oracle Health EHR software
• Need for each printer to handle output from user desktops, Oracle Health EHR, and other back-end business apps
• Lack of connectivity: some printers were not connected to the customer’s internal network, for example more than 4,000 devices at external caregivers

The LRS Solution

To address these challenges, the customer evaluated a number of output management solutions but found that only LRS® software was able to address all of their requirements. LRS offered a certified interface to the Oracle Health EHR and provided a robust central point of control for all healthcare and user workstation printing, simplifying administration tasks. LRS data transforms also converted the native PostScript data generated by Oracle Health EHR into formats that could print on the many makes/models in the organization’s device fleet.

Most importantly, the LRS Affiliate Printing function enabled external care providers to print Oracle Health EHR documents to devices even outside the corporate network. Without this capability, the success of the entire Oracle Health EHR implementation was in jeopardy. LRS software mitigated this risk. Leveraging the flexible VPSX-based central point of control, the project team was able to provide enhanced functionality like secure pull printing, printing from virtual clients, serverless direct printing, and more. Over time, the organization’s IT team plans to explore additional capabilities as needed.

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Simplicity: single point of control means administrators and help desk staff no longer need to maintain multiple print systems for different apps & platforms.
• Cost savings: LRS data transforms eliminated need to replace existing printers in order to print PostScript data streams from new EMR application. The ability to print to devices outside the network eliminated need for costly VPNs & WAN expansion.
• Risk mitigation: the ability to securely deliver critical documents to devices both in and outside the network eliminated a major risk for potential project failure.
• Peace of mind: the VPSX/MI module provided a certified interface to the Oracle Health EHR that had been proven reliable in many large Oracle Health installations.

KEY DELIVERABLES

• Scalable print management environment that can handle dramatically increased document volumes without the need for additional servers or specialty hardware.
• Vendor-agnostic, standards-based solution able to run on a variety of operating systems and hardware platforms running any backend or user desktop application.
• Flexible, customizable software that can adapt to meet the changing needs of this large healthcare provider.
• End-to-end encryption of documents while in transit and at rest to ensure data security.

Learn how LRS solutions can improve printing in your healthcare environment. Visit LRSOutputManagement.com to learn more.