Saving money on practice printers

Originally published in GP magazine .

Written for GP magazine around 2010. This is the version I submitted - the published article may have been edited.

In today’s economic climate we all need to be as efficient as possible. One area ripe for economies is printers. Printers drive me crazy: every year slightly different models come out which use different toner cartridges. Everyone seems to have a different model in their room, and there often seems little thought to where they go and who has what. Here are some things to consider.

Inkjets are expensive. For most things you would be much better off using a laser printer. If you have a lot of inkjets, add up how much you spend on ink and have a think about whether you would be better switching to lasers or sharing (see later).

Although new models come out every year, there is often little advantage to them. If you are buying a printer, think about trying to get hold of the same model as you already have - it will often be cheaper and you can use the same supplies. Some retailers specialise in last year’s models.

Do you have a list of which printers you have where? Do a stocktake of what inkjet cartridges and toner you have hidden away. That shelf full of cartridges represents a lot of money - think about moving printers you have big stocks of supplies for into frequently used workstations to use up the supplies. Why buy a new toner for one printer when you have lots of toner for that machine that hardly gets used? Move them around - it isn’t difficult to do.

In general, don’t keep large stocks of refills unless you get amazing discounts, as almost all products are available next day or from the high street. Realise your assets - consider selling your old unused stock on eBay or to other practices.

If you are lucky enough to have dual-bin printers, the most obvious place for them is in consulting rooms to allow paper forms and prescriptions. However, if you don’t have enough or can’t afford them, install a printer at reception and add it as a second printer to every room - it may even be a good way for your clinicians to terminate the consultation, advising people to collect their leaflet from reception.

In offices, consider special network printers. These are larger, much faster to print and are usually cheaper to run. Staff who don’t like standing up and walking over will get used to it. We have one that is accessible from our wireless network, meaning all mobile users can print to it as well, which is an advantage.

If you can’t afford a new network printer, you can share printers that you already have. There are two methods: one is free but relies on leaving a computer on; the other involves a small box, which is cheaper than a new printer but may need setting up.

Do you spend a lot of money on colour printing from inkjets, printing graphs from the PCT and documents that come into the practice? We recently bought a centralised colour laser and removed colour inkjets from rooms that had them. This makes people think twice about printing everything in colour just because they could, but when they do it’s better quality and cheaper.