Today it was announced that Poole NHS Trust and Xerox have signed a 5 year agreement that will provide the Trust with greater control over its printing processes in order to cut costs, reduce paper wastage, and increase the security of confidential patient data.

This deal is a move to help realise NHS’s 2018 ‘paper light’ goal following the release of the Wachter review, which termed it as “unrealistic”.

This is one of many examples of NHS hospitals deploying technology to improve operational efficiency in the face of a healthcare crisis.

Earlier this month Visual analytics technology helped Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh (WWL) NHS Foundation Trust become one of the top performing A&E departments in the country.

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Xerox understands the power technology can yield, and in particular taking a digital approach to patient care is critical in enabling healthcare to work better and smarter.

Technology can drive cost savings without compromising the quality of service, or the data of the patients.

Technology in practice

The Trust implemented Xerox’s FollowMe solution to enable its 3,700 staff (administrative, clinical, research and teaching) to print securely from any enabled device to any networked printer onsite, whenever and wherever they wish.

The solution protects patient data by permitting confidential printing and gives the Trust greater visibility into printing patterns across users, departments or devices, enabling it to reduce costs and unnecessary printing.

As part of the installation, which took place in July 2016, Poole Hospital has streamlined its print infrastructure by 30%.

Over 180 under-utilised printers were identified and removed and 430 new printers were installed.

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“The Trust faces the challenge of needing to drive cost savings without compromising on the quality of our service,” Peter Baker, head of Commercial Services, Poole Hospital said.
“We worked closely with Xerox to streamline every aspect of our printing processes, so that we could offer our staff the best options for printing and have better visibility into how we print – you can’t control what you can’t measure.”

“Taking steps towards a more digital approach to patient care is critical in enabling healthcare to work better and smarter,” said Andrew Morrison, president, Large Enterprise Organisation, Xerox Europe.

“We worked closely with Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to ensure the full spectrum of its staff are able to print securely without draining financial resources.”