Mayo Clinic: Healthy and Growing

a secure digital print room where it prints all of its variable data work (about four million pages per month).

“There’s only about 10 people that have access to that room,” remarks Bedsted. Being able to maintain the confidentiality of patient data is one of the in-plant’s most important functions, he feels.

Rick Irish refills envelopes on the mail inserter.

His operation also handles print buying for Mayo, and purchases about $12 million a year in outside printing. Seeing what is bring printed outside and how much it’s costing has helped the in-plant expand by giving Bedsted the data he needs to bring this work in-house.

“It really has helped us grow and acquire equipment,” he affirms. “We’ve been really well supported in getting the technologies that we believe we need.”

The in-plant recently replaced its CD/DVD duplicator, added a new wide-format printer and installed new banding machines. Next year the shop plans to replace its older envelope inserter.

Online Tools

Brian Hindal runs the UV flatbed printer, which can print on rigid materials like wood, metal and glass.

On the front end, the in-plant uses an online tool it developed years ago to give its customers access to PDFs of about 25,000 Mayo forms. They can download fillable PDFs or send them as print jobs to the in-plant. Another online tool called Virtual Ticket lets customers upload files to the print shop.

The in-plant’s e-prep area prepares and corrects all job files whether they are printed in-house or sent to outside printers.

“So not only do we save a lot of money by not having printers make alterations and corrections,” Bedsted points out, “we also develop ownership of all the files.”

Many of Mayo’s patient education materials are printed in large volumes as offset shells and then imprinted in smaller runs on digital presses and saddle stitched in-line. The in-plant also uses its small offset presses to print envelopes and long runs of forms.

The in-plant’s large-format output area produces numerous scientific posters for use in presentations, in addition to directional signage and banners for events. The shop’s 96˝ UV flatbed printer can print on rigid materials like wood, metal and glass. The in-plant has printed the colored glass used in some of Mayo’s hospital chapels. incoming USPS mail and packages, outgoing first class letters and flats—which are machine sorted by zip code—packages and “intra-Clinic” mail. The in-plant prints and inserts most outgoing first class letters and flats and processes some direct mail brochures and postcards for medical courses.

The department also has a photo printer, which it uses to print the photos of doctors and staff that are posted by hospital elevators, to create a more inviting environment for patients.

Bedsted is proud of the quality of his in-plant’s work and notes that, for the past decade, the shop has focused on color repeatability and standardization using GRACoL specifications. Monitors are calibrated regularly, he says. Whether a job is run on the Heidelberg press, the Xerox iGen4 or an Epson wide-format printer, he says, “they’ll look the same. That’s been a very valuable effort for us.”

Since taking on the mail center, the in-plant now handles incoming USPS mail and packages, outgoing first class letters and flats—which are machine sorted by zip code—packages and “intra-Clinic” mail. The in-plant prints and inserts most outgoing first class letters and flats and processes some direct mail brochures and postcards for medical courses.

Bedsted is currently involved in an organization-wide program to consolidate Mayo’s many forms and create a database. In the future he intends to focus on doing more printing for Mayo’s regional hospitals and clinics to keep the in-plant busy and save even more money for Mayo Clinic.