Modernizing Healthcare Print Infrastructure: 5 Reasons to Migrate to the Cloud

Introduction

When a print server fails at 2 AM, clinical staff can’t print patient wristbands, medication labels, or discharge instructions … and IT finds out only when someone calls the help desk. Healthcare IT teams manage thousands of printers across dozens of facilities with no real-time visibility, no centralized control, and print servers that create both security vulnerabilities and patient safety risks.

Every day, clinicians rely on printing for patient wristbands, medication labels, specimen labels, prescriptions, referrals, discharge instructions, consent forms, and countless other clinical documents. These workflows remain essential for patient care and regulatory compliance. Yet most healthcare organizations continue to rely on aging print servers and decentralized print environments that introduce unnecessary complexity, security exposure, and operational risk.

Cloud printing offers a modern alternative. By eliminating print servers, centralizing management, and strengthening security, healthcare organizations can simplify IT operations while supporting clinicians wherever care is delivered.

For healthcare providers, modernizing print is about more than infrastructure. It is about protecting patient data, supporting caregivers, improving operational efficiency, and reducing organizational risk.

The Challenges of Printing in Healthcare

Patient Data Requires Stronger Protection

Healthcare organizations process enormous volumes of protected health information (PHI) every day. Printers routinely handle patient records, lab results, prescriptions, billing documents, insurance information, and discharge paperwork, making them an important part of an organization’s security posture.

Unfortunately, printers are often overlooked during cybersecurity planning. Unsecured print infrastructure can expose sensitive patient information, creating opportunities for ransomware, unauthorized access, compliance violations, and costly data breaches. According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report, healthcare continues to experience the highest average cost of a data breach across all industries, reinforcing the importance of securing every endpoint, including printers.

Distributed Care Creates Operational Complexity

Healthcare no longer happens inside a single hospital.

Today’s health systems manage hospitals, outpatient clinics, physician practices, ambulatory surgery centers, imaging facilities, urgent care locations, pharmacies, laboratories, and administrative offices spread across large geographic regions.

Clinicians frequently move between locations while administrative teams increasingly work remotely or in hybrid environments. Supporting secure, reliable printing across these diverse settings becomes increasingly difficult when each location relies on local print servers and inconsistent policies.

Centralized cloud print management provides a consistent experience for caregivers while reducing operational complexity for IT.

Regulatory Requirements Continue to Expand

Healthcare organizations must comply with HIPAA while also addressing growing state privacy regulations and organizational cybersecurity initiatives.

Every printed document containing patient information must be appropriately protected through authentication, encryption, audit logging, and secure handling.

Modernizing print today helps healthcare organizations prepare for tomorrow’s security and platform requirements.

Print Server Refresh Cycles Create Urgency

Many healthcare organizations face print server refresh cycles in the next 12-24 months. These refresh cycles represent a critical decision point: invest in new on-premises infrastructure that perpetuates the same security and operational challenges, or eliminate print servers entirely.

Organizations that modernize print infrastructure before their next server refresh avoid:

• Capital expenditure on hardware that will be obsolete within 3-5 years
• Ongoing maintenance costs for Windows-based infrastructure
• Security vulnerabilities inherent in on-premises print servers
• Operational complexity of managing distributed server infrastructure

Top 5 Reasons Healthcare Organizations Must Migrate Print to the Cloud

1. Gain Real-Time Visibility to Prevent Downtime Before It Impacts Patient Care

Healthcare organizations need accurate insight into how printing supports clinical and administrative operations.

Cloud print analytics provide visibility into device utilization, departmental print volumes, user activity, and organizational trends across every facility.

These insights help identify underutilized devices, optimize fleet investments, reduce unnecessary printing, and support sustainability initiatives without disrupting patient care.

Leaders can make better decisions based on data while ensuring clinicians always have access to the printing resources they need.

2. Eliminate Print Servers as a Security and Patient Safety Risk

Managing print servers across hospitals, clinics, and administrative offices consumes valuable IT resources.

Cloud printing eliminates the need for local print servers while centralizing printer management, software updates, driver management, policy administration, and user provisioning.

This becomes especially valuable as organizations prepare for Windows Protected Print. Rather than continuously managing print drivers and print server infrastructure, healthcare IT teams can transition toward a more modern architecture that aligns with Microsoft’s future direction.

Instead of maintaining legacy print infrastructure, IT teams can devote more time to cybersecurity, digital health initiatives, AI adoption, and improving the clinician experience.

3. Ensure Clinical Printing Continues During Network Outages

Healthcare doesn’t stop when the internet goes down. Clinicians still need to print patient wristbands, specimen labels, medication instructions, discharge paperwork, referrals, and other critical documents regardless of network conditions. If printing depends entirely on cloud connectivity, even a temporary internet disruption can delay care and create unnecessary operational challenges.

Modern cloud print architectures are designed with resilience in mind. Rather than relying solely on continuous internet connectivity, they can continue supporting local printing during network outages by enabling print jobs to be processed within the local environment until connectivity is restored.

For healthcare organizations, this means clinicians can continue working without interruption, IT teams can reduce concerns around business continuity, and patient care remains the top priority even during unexpected outages.

4. Strengthen Security and Support Zero Trust Initiatives

Healthcare remains one of the world’s most targeted industries for cybercrime. Every device connected to the network, including printers, represents a potential attack surface. Cloud-native print management strengthens security by supporting Zero Trust principles through centralized authentication, encrypted communications, secure print release, and policy enforcement across every facility.

Rather than allowing confidential documents to sit unattended in printer output trays, secure release ensures patient information is only printed after authorized staff authenticate at the device.

This helps reduce accidental exposure while strengthening protection for PHI.

5. Support Distributed Care Teams Across Every Location

Healthcare professionals need reliable access to printing wherever patient care occurs. Whether nurses are printing medication administration records, physicians are printing referrals, or administrative staff are preparing patient documentation, printing must simply work without adding friction to clinical workflows.

Cloud printing allows authorized users to securely print from hospitals, outpatient clinics, physician offices, or approved remote locations while maintaining a consistent experience across the organization.

The result is improved productivity for clinicians and less time spent troubleshooting printing issues.

Why Healthcare Organizations Choose Pharos Over Alternatives

Healthcare organizations evaluating print management solutions often compare multiple vendors. Here’s what sets Pharos apart:

How Pharos Helps Healthcare Organizations Securely Migrate Print to the Cloud

Pharos Cloud is a secure, cloud-native print management platform designed for large, complex organizations like healthcare providers.

Built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Pharos Cloud helps hospitals and health systems eliminate print servers, strengthen security, simplify IT operations, and improve visibility while supporting healthcare compliance requirements.

Designed for enterprise environments, Pharos Cloud enables healthcare organizations to modernize print without disrupting the clinical workflows that caregivers depend on every day.

Multi-Vendor Fleet Support

Healthcare organizations rarely standardize on a single printer vendor. They inherit devices through acquisitions, manage legacy contracts, and support specialized clinical printers for medication labels, patient wristbands, and specimen tracking.

Pharos Cloud supports HP, Lexmark, Canon, Xerox, Ricoh, and specialized clinical printers through IPP Everywhere and native device support—no vendor lock-in required. Healthcare IT teams can manage their entire fleet from a single console regardless of manufacturer, eliminating the complexity of multiple management tools and vendor-specific workflows.

Pharos Cloud Capabilities

Pharos Direct Print

Centrally manage printers, drivers, queues, and users across hospitals, clinics, physician practices, and administrative offices through a scalable cloud platform.

Pharos Secure Release

Protect patient records, prescriptions, referrals, discharge instructions, and other sensitive documents by ensuring they are only released after authorized staff authenticate at the printer.

Pharos Insights

Gain comprehensive analytics into print activity across every healthcare facility to optimize costs, improve operational efficiency, support sustainability initiatives, and make more informed infrastructure decisions.

Trusted by thousands of organizations worldwide, including many of the world’s largest enterprises, Pharos helps healthcare organizations modernize print while strengthening security, improving visibility, and simplifying management.