Printers for medical and healthcare practices: Secure printing and patient record scanning

A printer in a medical practice handles some of the most sensitive information a business ever touches: referrals, results, scripts, patient histories. Choosing the right device, and setting it up properly, is as much a privacy decision as an equipment one. This guide covers what to look for in a printer for a medical practice, and the privacy and security considerations specific to handling patient health information.

What to look for in a printer for a medical practice

Beyond the features any busy office needs, speed, reliability, reasonable running costs, a few specs matter more in a clinical setting than a standard office.

• Secure print release, so documents do not sit unattended on an output tray in a reception or waiting area

• Scan-to-secure-folder or scan-to-email, for digitising referrals and results without a separate scanner

• A duty cycle that matches genuine daily volume, since clinics often print scripts, referrals and reports steadily through the day rather than in short bursts

• A compact footprint if the device needs to sit in a back office or reception area rather than a dedicated print room

Secure printing for patient confidentiality

Patient health information sits in a stricter category than most business documents, both under privacy law and under the practical reality of a shared clinic environment.

Health information privacy and data security

Health information is treated as sensitive information under the Privacy Act 1988, which generally requires a higher standard of care than other personal information. One detail worth knowing: the small business exemption that normally applies to businesses under $3 million turnover does not apply to health service providers, meaning even a solo allied health practice is bound by the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles in a way a similarly sized business in another industry might not be.

Source: Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, Guide to Health Privacy

APP 11 requires reasonable steps to secure personal information against misuse, loss and unauthorised access, and to destroy or de-identify it when it is no longer needed. This applies to information handled through a printer or scanner just as it applies to information stored digitally.

Source: OAIC, Australian Privacy Principles Guidelines (APP 11)

If a printer or scanner leads to patient information being disclosed without authorisation, this may trigger obligations under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme. For general practice specifically, the RACGP's Standards for General Practices set accreditation expectations around information security and confidentiality, including how ICT and printing devices are managed.

Sources: OAIC, Notifiable Data Breaches scheme; RACGP, Standards for General Practices (6th ed.), F8 and F9

Secure print release and access control

Secure print release, where a document only prints once the sender authenticates at the device with a PIN or card, prevents printouts of scripts, results or referrals from sitting exposed in a reception or shared clinical area. Guidance from NSW Health's privacy manual for health information, while written for the NSW public health system, sets out a useful general principle for any practice: keep printers handling sensitive documents in access-controlled areas, and remove printouts promptly rather than leaving them to accumulate.

Source: NSW Health, Privacy Manual for Health Information

User authentication on the device itself, not just at the point of sending a job, adds a second layer of protection for practices where several practitioners or admin staff share one printer.

Scanning and digitising patient records

Digitising paper-based patient records is common as practices move toward electronic health records, but the process is not identical to scanning general business documents.

AS 2828.2 is the key Australian standard covering how paper health records should be digitised and managed, including quality control, indexing and security, and is a useful reference point when setting up a scanning workflow rather than treating it as a generic office task.

Source: Standards Australia, AS 2828.2, Digitised Health Records (via Australian Digital Health Agency)

Retention obligations for health records vary by record type and jurisdiction. Western Australia does not have a dedicated Health Records Act in the way some other states do, so for a private WA practice, the Privacy Act and Australian Privacy Principles remain the primary framework, alongside professional obligations under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law. WA's Privacy and Responsible Information Sharing Act 2024 introduces new obligations for WA public entities from mid-2026, but does not directly bind private practices.

Sources: WA Department of Health, Privacy Statement; WA Government, Privacy and Responsible Information Sharing Act 2024 guidance

This is general information, not legal advice. Retention periods and specific compliance obligations should be confirmed with your practice's compliance advisor, the RACGP, or the relevant health practitioner board.

Printers for different healthcare settings

Scope BI supplies laser printers and multifunction devices from Sharp, Konica Minolta and Brother, sized to different clinical settings and patient volumes.

Small clinics and allied health

A compact colour multifunction printer, such as the Sharp BP51C26 and BP56C26 or the Konica Minolta bizhub C251i and C301i, suits a solo or small allied health practice with a handful of staff sharing one device for referrals, invoices and scanning. The privacy obligations discussed above apply at this scale just as much as at a larger practice, so secure print release is worth prioritising even for a single-practitioner clinic.

Medical centres and larger practices

Busier medical centres with several practitioners and higher daily volume are better served by a faster device, such as the Sharp BP61C31 and BP71C31 or the Konica Minolta bizhub C361i and C551i, which handle steady daily printing without becoming a bottleneck at reception.

See our A3 and A4 office printer range

Legal document scanning: OCR, compliance and best practice for law firms

As with legal practices, a rented device with servicing and consumables bundled into one monthly cost tends to suit medical practices well, particularly where compliance requirements mean a printer needs replacing or upgrading before it reaches the end of its working life.