The Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust is one of the largest in England, employing more than 6,500 people and with an annual income of more than £200 million. It provides acute health care services for almost a million people covering Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight and surrounding region. The Information and Communication Technology department (ICT) within the Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust is involved with the management of information, statistics, computer networks, upgrading computer systems, new installs, computer support and development and many other services.
The Trust standardised on Kyocera Mita printers around seven years ago, and now has approximately 400 units which are deployed throughout the Trust’s facilities. A&E departments, ward areas, outpatient clinics and managers’ offices are all equipped with Kyocera Mita printers to ensure that everyday document production runs smoothly.
The print network is managed by Kyocera Mita’s KM-Net Viewer remote monitoring software. Steve Arnold explains how this has enabled the Trust to better serve itspatients and staff: “KM-Net Viewer provides a very useful tool to monitor and control the printers across the organisation. The ability to assess the status of each unit without having to physically check it saves a great deal of time and effort and minimises downtime, leading to better service for our users and patients.”
During the time that Kyocera Mita printers have been installed at the Trust they have proved robust and reliable, as Steve Arnold explains: “It is important to us that our technology infrastructure is as reliable and easy to maintain as possible. Kyocera Mita products sit comfortably in that category. Kyocera Mita’s toner cassettes are very easy to change, which reduces the number of times support staff have to intervene in the operation of the printers as any member of staff can change the toner.”
Low Cost Champions
Kyocera Mita’s printers use the company’s unique ECOSYS technology which dramatically reduces the cost of ownership of its printers and reduces the environmental impact of office printing. ECOSYS was developed ten years ago and has been deployed in all Kyocera Mita printers ever since.
With standard laser printers, when the toner runs out you replace a cartridge which also contains the drum and developer. This is like forcing drivers to buy a new engine every time their car runs out of petrol. It not only results in a high cost of ownership for the user, but the excess waste which contains a potentially noxious cocktail of plastics, rubber, foam, brass, copper and aluminium, is consigned to landfill as a potential problem for future generations. ECOSYS toner cassettes are designed to be safely incinerated and are therefore kinder to the Earth’s environment and thus more ecologically responsible.
ECOSYS makes Kyocera Mita printers up to 60% less expensive to run than competitive products and this is an important factor for the NHS Trust: “Trimming costs while maintaining quality is an increasingly central element to any public sector project,” explains Steve Arnold. “The fact that we can ensure high quality print output while also saving money has been a key factor in our decision to continue using Kyocera Mita products over the years.”
Positive Prognosis
The Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust will continue using Kyocera Mita products for the foreseeable future and Steve Arnold envisages a potential expansion in the installation: “We’d like to investigate the possibility of installing some of Kyocera Mita’s multifunctional printer/copier products to supplement the devices that we already have. Our partnership with Kyocera Mita has proved valuable to the Trust and the service and support that the company has provided has been very satisfactory.”
