It was not so long ago that most hospital environments with a fleet of printers, copiers, and fax machines were only concerned with the efficient working of these devices. Fast forward to today, hospitals are hard-pressed to drive down the cost associated with paper-based printing. Alongside, in the wake of increased cyber and IoT type of attacks that target printers to carry out malicious activities, the healthcare industry has to counter the crippling cyber menace. Presenting a twin-fold advantage is the Austin-based CynergisTek that integrates cybersecurity into their managed print offering (MPS) to resolve two big issues faced by healthcare institutions—reducing expenses from non-critical processes such as the print ecosystem and avoid the damaging effects related to security incidents.

We take a multifaceted approach to save money on printing,” begins Mac McMillan, CEO and President of CynergisTek. As a first step, the CynergisTek team performs an assessment of the hospital’s print ecosystem and if the printers are managed in-house, the company initiates what it calls an opportunity assessment, where the team evaluates every opportunity to drive out the cost. If the hospital has an MPS program in place, then they initiate an optimization assessment, which means that the team evaluates the current program of the client and identifies gaps to further drive savings. “We evaluate our client’s hospital environment from a system, volume, consumables, contract, and financial perspective and then analyze ways to optimally utilize the devices and manage the fleet more efficiently,” says McMillan. “With more than 14 years of experience in cybersecurity, we can also secure these devices while most other MPS providers have to rope in other security providers or only address the printers they sell.”

"With an exclusive focus on the healthcare arena since 2004, more than 1500 hospitals have benefited from the vast experience that the CynergisTek team brings to the table. Being vendor-neutral, the company’s managed print service covers all the multiple kinds of print and copier devices in the hospital premises. To bring about substantial cost savings, McMillan stresses on the need to effect a change in the organizational behavior with regard to the prudent usage of consumables, printing in black and white as opposed to color wherever feasible, and stopping the misuse and unnecessary printing of documents where an electronic copy will suffice.