Can your team answer these questions?
- Who printed this record?
- When?
- From which device?
If not, it’s a sign your MPS strategy isn’t working and that’s a compliance issue waiting to happen.
HIPAA, HITECH, and GDPR all require audit trails for any system that handles PHI, including printers, scanners, and fax machines. But in most healthcare organizations, print remains the least monitored part of the infrastructure.
Even if your policies are clear, you can’t enforce or prove them without visibility.
Why This Matters
Auditors expect full traceability. So do internal security teams. If you can’t track who accessed a document, when it was printed, or from which device, you’re exposed.
Here’s what’s at risk without print monitoring:
- Regulatory penalties due to incomplete audit trails
- Undetected access to PHI
- Breakdowns in policy enforcement or policies that aren’t followed at all
- No baseline for improving efficiency, reducing waste, or spotting unusual behavior
And yet, these gaps are still common, especially in large, distributed environments where devices are spread across units, departments, and facilities.
What Effective Print Monitoring Actually Looks Like
Modern, integrated systems give healthcare IT full visibility into print, scan, and fax activity without adding overhead.
At a minimum, a well-monitored Input/Output (I/O) environment should include:
- User authentication at every device (badge swipe or secure PIN)
- Automatic logging of all activity: print, copy, scan, and fax
- Role-based access controls that tie device use to a specific user or job function
- Centralized dashboards and logs for IT teams to monitor and audit
- Configurable alerts for out-of-policy activity (e.g., large print jobs)
- Exportable reports that map directly to HIPAA and GDPR audit requirements
These systems also reduce manual investigation time, support faster incident response, and help streamline support by tying issues to users and devices.
Where Gaps Still Exist
Even in mature I/O environments, we still see common blind spots:
- Devices that aren’t tied to user accounts
- Shared login credentials or no authentication at all
- No centralized tracking across departments or locations
- Manual logs or none at all
- Separate systems for print and scan monitoring, creating silos
These issues compound in multi-site health systems, where inconsistent infrastructure makes standardized oversight difficult.
How to Start Closing the Gap
You don’t need to rip and replace. You just need a clear path forward.
Here’s how to get started:
- Map your I/O environment
Identify every device handling PHI: printers, scanners, labelers, fax machines; include off-network and remote sites. - Assess your current visibility
Can you track access to documents across all devices? Is it tied to individual users? - Close authentication gaps
Any device that doesn’t require user authentication is a risk. Start there. - Consolidate monitoring
Use a platform that integrates print, scan, and fax tracking into one view. Bonus if it plugs into your existing help desk system. - Set alerts and reporting standards
Make it easy for your team to respond to issues, not chase logs.
What Techio Does Differently
We take ownership of your I/O infrastructure and equip your team with the tools to track, report, and optimize usage across every device.
Here’s how:
- We audit your environment to identify visibility and compliance gaps
- We standardize device behavior across sites
- We close authentication holes and enforce role-based access
- We integrate print monitoring into your broader support workflows
- We deliver real-time, audit-ready reporting through Techio’s built-in BI platform, giving you clear insights into usage patterns, policy enforcement, and risk signals.
- And we do it all within the operational and budget constraints healthcare IT teams face daily.
Want to know where your environment stands and what it would take to fix it?
Book a free consultation here.