Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust (HCT) is the principal provider of community- based healthcare services to a population of over one million in Hertfordshire, U.K. More than 2,800 staff deliver a wide range of high-quality health services to people in their homes, in local clinics, in schools and in community hospitals located across the county. HCT also provides healthcare services at HMP The Mount in Bovingdon.
THE CHALLENGE
HCT was in the process of updating its Konica Minolta print fleet and decided to use the opportunity to have pull-printing as a convenience to its staff. However, HCT has more than 40 site locations and staff would carry documents, often confidential documents, from site to site. This presented a document security concern.
As an NHS Trust, scan to email activity was routed through the NHS email system, NHS.net, regarded as a secure email system. The scanned documents contained patient information that was not only identifiable but also highly confidential, which resulted in an HCT mandate that 3rd party email systems could not be used. Therefore, any print management system that processed scans had to be customised to route digital documents through NHS.net.
SOLUTION
HCT chose YSoft SafeQ on the recommendation of Konica Minolta, testing it on eight devices in headquarters before expanding across 105 devices. As printing is a shared service among a few Trusts, IT was brought in to verify system requirements. “The rollout to our entire fleet was very painless, very seamless,” commented Declan Doherty, Procurement Manager, HCT.
RESULTS
As expected, the pull-printing feature, Print Roaming, allows employees to print from any print device in the HCT network. Sensitive and confidential documents no longer need to be carried as staff move from office to office. Using YSoft SafeQ’s Rule-Based Engine, which allows for customised scripts, YSoft and Konica Minolta configured YSoft SafeQ to safely and securely route scanned documents through the NHS email system.
By updating their fleet, YSoft SafeQ provides a consistent user experience all through a single print queue. With Print Roaming, all printed documents are picked up – following authentication – from the job owner securely at the device of their choice. With heavy public sector fines for data breaches and recent GDPR legislation, the security of all printed data is now vital within the NHS.
HCT also allows its NHS IT provider to use guest printing where individuals can generate their own secure PIN and print, instead of asking HCT staff to print on their behalf. This even works with mobile devices and supports BOYD initiatives; the ‘guest’ can simply attach a document to their email application on their phone, and send this encrypted file to the YSoft SafeQ mobile print server – this generates a password for the user, who authenticates at their chosen device to release the print job.
HCT staff previously entered a 4-digit PIN code to access print, copy and scan features. Now they can simply swipe their badge which has an authentication sticker. “Within SafeQ, there are additional features that we now take for granted. It was another world before YSoft SafeQ,” Declan Doherty added.
FUTURE OPTIMISATION
This seems to be just the beginning for Declan and HCT. With YSoft SafeQ’s flexibility, Konica Minolta can help HCT further in a phased approach. For example, many patient stations are equipped with scan devices that route documents to SystemOne. Accounting for this scan activity could be added to YSoft SafeQ reporting.
In the future, some existing desktop inkjet printers will be replaced and the ones that will be kept – mostly because they are in patient rooms – can be added to the YSoft SafeQ system.
HCT uses rules in YSoft SafeQ to curb waste such as gray scale for printing of emails and double-sided printing. “It’s an area we are looking to do more,” Declan noted.
