Samsung, Laserband Create Printing Bundle For Health Care

The Irvine, Calif.-based unit of Samsung said it has integrated the LaserBand2 self-laminating, bar-coded wristband product from LaserBand, St. Louis, with its own 35-ppm ML-3561N network-capable laser printer.

The two companies said their joint offering is available to all Samsung resellers.

“We took a look and had seen where we were successful in the past, based on our price points and product line, and health care was actually one of the areas where Samsung had made some penetration,” said Tony Venice, senior business solutions manager for Samsung Electronics America’s IT Division. “We wanted to continue that momentum and continue on in that success.”

“We tried to look and see where there were other areas where our product would fit into other health-care applications,” Venice said.

Mike Waller, sales executive at RBO, a Maryland Heights, Mo.-based solution provider that has partnered with LaserBand, said he believes integration with the Samsung laser printer is a good fit in a growing sector. He said the bar-code capability of the bundle is essential—and a key selling point.

“An accurate bar code is critical in today’s medical industry,” Waller said. “Not only do [hospitals] need to be able to scan for medical purposes, they have to be able to scan patient information, whether it’s a test tube full of a sample or a doctor’s order sheet or an emergency-room record sheet. They have to be able to read that bar code into that scanner.”

In taking on this segment of the health-care space, Samsung is entering what could be a highly competitive arena. Among its competitors, Lexmark also has begun showing a similar bundled offering of software and a printer that creates for patients a custom wristband, which includes bar codes.

Samsung’s IT division has been working with channel partners for more than a year to develop custom offerings for Samsung’s fledgling printer unit. Venice said the ML-3561N laser printer is a good fit for the wristband product because of its fast print output and ability to use a standard 8 1/2-inch-by-11-inch printer tray for both wristbands and regular paper.

The printer can hold up to 500 sheets at a time and runs with a 150,000-page monthly duty cycle, Samsung said.