Managing Cloud-Hosted Epic Print Jobs with PaperCut MF

Managing Cloud-Hosted Epic Print Jobs with PaperCut MF

Epic Print Servers (Cloud and On-Premise)

With on-premise and Cloud-Hosted versions of Epic, print jobs are routed through one or multiple Epic Print Servers (EPS). However, with an Epic cloud-hosted environment, on-premise print management systems such as PaperCut MF were challenged to establish a secure conduit for transmitting these hosted EPS jobs to a Secondary Server for tracking and FindME print secure.

To address this, PaperCut developed the Epic Healthcare Module , a specialized extension designed to bridge the gap between Epic’s Cloud Hosted infrastructure and local print environments. This module securely transmits print jobs from the hosted EPS to an on-premise Secondary Server, enabling full print job tracking and support for secure pull printing (e.g., Find-Me Printing).

The PaperCut Epic Healthcare Module is available for ordering through the Epic Showroom and offers healthcare organizations a robust, compliant, and secure solution for managing backend print workflows in hybrid (cloud/on-premise) environments.

Epic HyperSpace - Virtual Local Printing (VLP) Overview

Back in 2018, Epic introduced an innovative advancement in its printing architecture known as Virtual Local Printing (VLP). This new approach reimagines traditional Epic Print Server (EPS)-based workflows by creating PDF files instead of the traditional PCL and PostScript spool files.

With Epic VLP, the Epic Print Server creates a PDF file, and then these files are stored as a blob via an Epic DB service. Depending on the access of the Epic User and the category of print job type, a list of printer queues within the Epic Client will be listed. When the Epic User submits a print job, either in a VDI session or on a Windows or MAC, an Epic Service retrieves the PDF from blob storage and then routes the PDF to the queue the user has selected.

This architecture offers organizations a modern and flexible alternative for managing Epic print workflows, particularly in Epic Cloud Hosted environments where Site-to-Site VPN’s become a cost factor. Additionally, VLP output queues can now be seamlessly managed using PaperCut’s Print Deploy, allowing for simplified deployment and centralized control of print configurations.

Challenges in Tracking Epic Usernames in Print Management Systems

Print management solutions like PaperCut can face challenges in accurately tracking and identifying Epic usernames associated with print jobs. This is especially true in two common scenarios:

1. Back-End Epic Print Jobs – where print jobs are generated by Epic’s backend systems.
   
2. Virtual Local Printer (VLP) Jobs – often routed through virtualized environments.

In both cases, the print jobs frequently appear under a service-level or generic account as the “document owner.” This makes it difficult to map the job back to the individual Epic user who initiated it.

This limitation is not unique to Epic—it is common across many EHR platforms. However, it creates a substantial issue for Find-Me printing, as well as for print tracking and auditing, which are essential for regulatory compliance.

Ultimately, without user-level attribution, organizations face a significant obstacle in aligning with HIPAA compliance requirements. Secure printing, audit trails, and access accountability depend heavily on identifiable user data. The inability to associate print jobs with specific users complicates security enforcement and increases the risk of unauthorized data exposure.

Solutions for Cloud Hosted Epic Printing Workflows

Epic Print Server Jobs- For Epic EPS print jobs where the spool file has a service level account as the identity, the Epic Admin may be able to change the owner to the Epic who printed the job. This can be adjusted on a case-by-case basis, dependent on the job type (think scheduled reports vs healthcare staff-generated jobs).

Epic Virtual Local Printing - Like EPS jobs, VLP printing could have the same issue with a service level account as the identity of the spool file. For VLP this challenge can be addressed with Epic’s Auto Local Printing (ALP) feature, which provides a unique solution for identifying users’ print jobs. Auto Local Printing is implemented using an Epic tool called Kuiper.

To configure Auto Local Printing:

• Install the ALP Client on the PaperCut Secondary Server hosting the print queues.
  
• Modify the Windows Registry to set the print job mode to “user”.
  

For detailed setup instructions, please contact your Epic Hosting Team. This information is also available to your Epic Administrator via the Epic UserWeb.

Additionally, the Configure Printer Options for Auto Local Printing guide outlines the application-side build steps required to ensure print jobs are properly routed to the ALP client.

Epic Front End Print Jobs (Ctrl-P) - Epic Front End printing is essentially the same as printing from any other Windows O/S application, where the username attached to the spool file is the logged-in Windows User. The local Windows queues can be used to print Epic jobs to those printers. PaperCut’s Print Deploy can be used for queue management in both Thin Terminal Desktop or Application VDI , or Windows and macOS environments.

• For organizations using Imprivata implementations, the Windows account may be a generic account, where the user authentication is handled via an Imprivata Client. The Imprivata username, however, is not reflected in the spool job if the local queues, either in a regular O/S or VDI environment, are expected to be tracked or user-deployed as “FindME” queues.
• The Imprivata Administrator can enable a setting within the Imprivata Admin UI called One Click for Print”. With this enabled, the Imprivata system will change the username from the generic Windows user to the Imprivata Username, allowing for tracking and FindEM Secure print

For further inquiries, contact your regional PaperCut Technical Service team via solutions@papercut.com