Software Shelf Launches Print Release Station 2008 to Protect Confidential Patient Records to Aid Compliance to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountabililty Act) and European Data Protection Rules. Print Manager Plus® Release Station 2008 for Health Care Industry is a Web-Based Tool Ensuring Physical Security of Protected Health Information (PHI) at a fraction of the cost of similar systems.

Software Shelf International today announced the launch of Print Manager Plus Release Station 2008 to protect physical privacy and confidentiality of printed documents as a compliance aide under HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), other Data Protection legislationdesigned to protect individuals’ rights to privacy and confidentiality. The product is an add-on to the market leading print management tool, Print Manager Plus.

The software is for use by hospitals, clinics, health care providers, health care plans, Medicare and Medicaid programs, health care clearinghouses, billing services, community health information systems and IT shops supporting these organizations who must satisfy the privacy and security rules issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and similar agencies worldwide dedicated to patient privacy and confidentiality of printed information.

The Release Station 2008 makes it easy for users and handlers of confidential information to print-out what they need in a manner that ensures no unauthorized persons can retrieve the printed information, even if printed from a workstation away from the printers themselves. Security guidelines require that release of the job can only occur when the user or his authorized agent is physically present at the printer where he has to enter his Active Directory or other user name and secure password to be able to print out the confidential document.

Once the product is installed, it operates as a native extension to Windows. Its ease of use has made it the most functional and cost effective print management, print control and print security software on the market today in terms of technical stability, quality and cost.

Penalties for violation of patient privacy can be severe. This Release Station 2008 ensures the physical security of Protected Health Information (PHI) when one prints-out PHI as the user is only allowed to print-out the hard copy when he or she goes to the Release Station (loaded on a pc or thin client at the printer) and releases the print job at the printer where he can pick up the print-out the moment it prints-out. This process also prevents stacks of wasted paper sitting at the printer at the end of the day.

The product meets the needs of any sized provider organization. It not only addresses HIPAA requirements and similar Data Protection rule provisions, it maximizes allowable cost recovery, its controls access to color output and prevents waste of material, costs and staff time.

Many healthcare documents are created on the desktop through a third party application or dictation. Users can create hundreds of such documents a day and users who print as they create can end up printing documents that often sit in the output tray of a printer for hours before they are retrieved. HIPAA regulations necessitate that the user disrupt his or her workflow to retrieve each document. This can cause substantial loss of productivity which can now be averted by the process using Release Station 2008 - documents are not actually printed until the owner/creator signs in to the Release Station ensuring document control from the point of creation to printout eliminating the possibility of documents being taken by an unauthorized person.

Print Manager Plus features include a complete print audit and print accounting trail by tracking of every print job with hundreds of reports on print usage by user, group, department and costs as well as the ability to set numerous kinds of print restrictions for nearly every print control scenario.

Print Manager Plus Release Station 2008, which is a native extension of the Windows operating system with seamless Active Directory integration, supports all brands and sizes of printers and plotters and printing from any operating systems where printing is through a Windows Print Server. Print Manager Plus is verified and logo-certified by Microsoft and has been featured by Microsoft as the Public Sector “Solution of the Month” for 18 months in a row.

About Software Shelf

Software Shelf was established in 1994 in Silicon Valley by William Feeley. Its flagship product, the print monitoring tool Print Manager Plus, is used by thousands of companies, schools, libraries and government offices worldwide, including: Yale University, Harvard University, Oxford University, Morgan Stanley, British Library and Microsoft. The company has offices in the US and UK as well as 150 partners with resellers in over 60 countries. Software Shelf was awarded the Hewlett-Packard Outstanding Partner of the Year Award in 2007. Software Shelf and Print Manager Plus are trademarks owned by Software Shelf worldwide.

For further information contact:

Bill Feeley
Print Manager
Phone: 650-521-5271
Email: bfeeley@printmanager.com