Netgain Deploys Reliable Printing to Hosted Clients

“UniPrint saves both Netgain and the client time and expense. The printer just works.”

– Brad Harrison, Director of Professional Services, Netgain

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Healthcare IT Provider Teams with UniPrint to Bring Reliable, Flexible and Simple Printing to Hosted Clients

About Netgain

Netgain is a healthcare IT provider offering secure, reliable and affordable solutions for complex IT deployments, hosted electronic medical records (EMR) and practice management systems.

The company provides solutions to hundreds of healthcare organizations across the United States, often within terminal server environments.

In response to the rising importance of eHealth initiatives, the company has developed a unique eHealth Architecture, which offers a fully integrated approach to healthcare IT and open-platform solutions that suit the specific needs of healthcare organizations.

Netgain’s IT outsourcing and 24-hour helpdesk eliminate the need for expensive in-house hardware and support, enabling healthcare organizations to focus on caring for patients, instead of worrying about IT concerns.

The Challenge

Physician practices and rural hospitals depend on Netgain to handle complex IT deployments, often involving hundreds of mixed client devices.

Users with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services environments were experiencing printing issues because a session number and a computer name would be added to each printer object every time a user logged on.

This resulted in confusion and issues with software applications. Even worse, the print control system would constantly crash when redirecting printers to the print spooler on a terminal server.

Healthcare mandates such as HIPAA require that patient medical information be kept secure. Netgain needed a solution that could protect medical records and minimize the exposure of confidential patient documents in keeping with the strict climate of the industry.

Given these security requirements, Netgain began evaluating vendors for a universal printing solution that would solve their location-based printing challenges.

Webinar: How to Achieve Secure Cloud Printing from MS Office & Azure

The Solution

After testing and evaluating several different options, Netgain decided to deploy UniPrint based on two primary factors.

The first was ease of administration for IT managers. Netgain found UniPrint’s streamlined interface much easier to use than competitive offerings.

The second was the ability to maintain a single name for each printer, which other vendors could not.

Netgain wanted a healthcare printing solution that would work in different client environments, such as Mac or Windows, and function effectively in a hosted environments.

UniPrint’s Bridge Server eliminated the need to install client software on user devices enabling clientless or “zero client” printing.

This allowed Netgain to easily accommodate printing requirements for fat client, thin client and other mobile devices.

Before UniPrint, when a clinic replaced a printer, they would have to call Netgain IT support in order to install a new printer driver before it could be used.

UniPrint provided a printer vendor-independent, Universal Printer Driver (UPD) that negated the need to install multiple manufacturer printer drivers and eliminated all incompatibility issues.

UniPrint allowed Netgain to easily add new printers to the network at any time.

UniPrint’s PrintPAL utility solved location-based printing challenges by enabling Netgain to centrally manage printer assignments by department or by user according to the specific needs of its customers.

Users were able to easily print to their usual office location by default or select another printer location which might be more secure or convenient.

“It was a nightmare before UniPrint,” said Brad Harrison, Director of Professional Services, Netgain.

“Now there is no longer any need for Netgain to install new drivers when a client adds a new printer to their network – the printer just works. We can push UniPrint out to 100 printers with only a few mouse clicks, saving both Netgain and the client time and expense.”

The Benefits

By integrating UniPrint’s cloud printing solution into Netgain’s hosted applications, Netgain solved the printer naming and location printing issues that previously vexed healthcare customers, and also improved security around the printing of sensitive health information documents.

At the same time, UniPrint reduced support costs for Netgain’s IT help desk, negating the need to install new printer drivers each time a client changes a printer.

On the rare occasion that issues arise, Netgain is backed up by UniPrint’s professional support team, which is always quick to provide answers to any problems.

UniPrint’s PDF-based Universal Printer Driver (UPD) simplified printer management for Netgain by compressing print jobs by almost 90% into PDF files and meeting the high security standards required for medical records in healthcare organizations.