VA Pulls Plug on Purchases of Personal Desktop Printers

The Department of Veterans Affairs is directing every chief information officer in the field to stop buying personal desktop printers, the first step to retiring these high-cost tools across the agency and replacing them with big multiuse printers.

VA spokeswoman Josephine Schuda said Nov. 29 that some regional and facility CIOs have informally gotten word of the policy shift although the Office of Information and Technology (OIT) has not yet issued a directive. The policy change came after OIT studied pilots at two facilities which have shown the value of buying and using desktop printers was less than using multiuse printers. The only exception is if an office can make a compelling case to buy one.

While OIT buys the printers, she said greater savings occur in the administrative budgets of the user when offices no longer have to purchase toner cartridges for these printers which are far more expensive than ink supplies for larger printers...