Nebraska Methodist Health System Reduces Footprint with Sharp Multifunction Printers

Business Environment Challenges

Located throughout Nebraska and western Iowa, the hospitals and clinics of Nebraska Methodist Health System set out to establish a level of caring and quality that is second to none.

With approximately 39 locations ranging from corporate buildings and clinics to three major hospitals, Nebraska Methodist Health System needed to reduce its printer footprint and more importantly reduce its overall operational costs for printers and solutions.  With a single printer in place for every four employees, it knew there was an opportunity to minimize costs and print more efficiently by implementing new multifunction printers (MFPs) that seamlessly integrated with their existing systems.

Technology Solutions

Nebraska Methodist Health System reached out to Marco, a local Sharp dealer, to help it create a more efficient printing system. Prior to the implementation, Nebraska Methodist Health System had 1,726 printers and fax machines placed throughout various locations within the health system. After working with Marco and Sharp, it now has 900 printers, 460 of which are Sharp multifunction printers. This resulted in a reduction of overall printer footprint by almost 50 percent in six months.

Nebraska Methodist Health System manages electronic patient records using Cerner, a global leader in health care technology. Additionally, in order to further protect patient information and ensure HIPAA compliance, Nebraska Methodist Health System has integrated with the Levi, Ray and Shoup’s LRS Enterprise Output Management solution, LRS VPSX Enterprise. Through Sharp’s long standing relationship with Cerner, the Sharp MFP models proposed to Nebraska Methodist Health Systems were already validated for use by Cerner’s EHR (electronic health record) application. LRS, as an active Sharp partner, seamlessly integrated the LRS VPSX Enterprise with the Sharp OSA platform. Nebraska Methodist Health System further tested and confirmed the compatibility of the Sharp MFPs with both Cerner & LRS by successfully printing reports and securely releasing documents with PIN codes. The implementation of these solutions provided Nebraska Methodist Health System with the opportunity to enhance their print management capabilities with more insightful reporting into how their MFPs were being utilized.

Proven Results

With a reduction of almost 50 percent of their original printer footprint, Nebraska Methodist Health System has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in operational print costs.

“We have saved $479,063 since implementation and that’s a significant savings for our health system,” says Kent Sona, CIO of Nebraska Methodist Health System. “The savings is a combination of the lease and maintenance costs. We have a lot less equipment on lease and it is significantly cheaper (cost per page) to print on these new systems. The new systems are faster which aid in allowing us to have the smaller footprint without impacting workflow.”

In addition to equipment costs, print management and reporting has also been significantly improved over the last few months.

“Print management has become a lot easier,” states Ryan Whelan, Senior Enterprise System Administrator of Nebraska Methodist Health System. “So much is now managed within the management software versus on the actual machines.”

Another big value for the executive team has been reporting. “Prior to the implementation, we didn't have great visibility into what was being printed,” says Sona. “Now the team is able to provide reports on users that are printing high volume or people that may be printing improperly. We can take that information and provide it to the leadership team and actively work to reduce the amount of excessive printing that happens. From a technology perspective, it also helps us to identify areas of high volume and how to improve on those workflows.”

Working with Marco was also a large factor in the success of the implementation. “The team was very responsive and they bent over backwards to do whatever we needed from them,” says Sean Stevens, IT Project Manager for Nebraska Methodist Health System. “We had some pretty specific challenges but Marco did what was needed to accommodate our needs, including renting trucks to combat with the winter weather, working additional hours and making sure that we stayed on track to finish the project on-time.”