Navigating the Merge Unity PACS Sunset

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Navigating the Merge Unity PACS Sunset

The Inevitable Cycle of Technological Progress

In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare technology, change is an inescapable constant. As innovative solutions emerge, legacy systems inevitably reach their twilight, paving the way for more advanced alternatives. The impending sunset of Merge Unity PACS, a reliable workhorse for numerous diagnostic imaging and radiology practices, exemplifies this cyclical nature of progress.

Earlier this year, Meritive’s Merge Healthcare division announced that support for this platform would cease on December 31st, 2025. This revelation left many healthcare providers grappling with the prospect of transitioning to a new solution.

But while the sunsetting of Merge Unity PACS may seem like a formidable challenge, it presents a unique opportunity to reevaluate your technological infrastructure and explore cutting-edge alternatives. By adopting a forward-thinking mindset, practices can leverage this transition to streamline workflows, enhance operational efficiency, and ultimately elevate the quality of patient care.

Preparing for Your Transition

The impending retirement of Merge Unity PACS necessitates a proactive approach to ensure a seamless transition and minimize operational disruptions. By taking strategic steps, organizations can navigate this change with confidence and precision.

The first step to take is to conduct a comprehensive assessment of your practice’s current needs and future requirements. This evaluation should encompass various factors, including:

  • Scalability: Determine the ability of your new solution to accommodate growth and adapt to evolving demands.
  • Integration: Evaluate the compatibility of potential replacements with your existing electronic health record (EHR) system and other essential software.
  • Workflow optimization: Identify opportunities to streamline processes and enhance efficiency through advanced features and automation.
  • User experience: Consider the user-friendliness and intuitiveness of the new interface, ensuring a smooth adoption by your staff.

A new PACS inevitably involves financial implications so it’s crucial to factor in early the costs associated with migration, implementation, training, and ongoing maintenance. Additionally, identify potential cost savings or efficiencies that can be gained in the long run, such as reduced infrastructure expenses or increased productivity. 

Next, identify key stakeholders on your transition plan, decision-makers, IT, and end-users, who will be involved in the evaluation and selection process.  Solicit their input, address any concerns, and ensure the chosen solution aligns with organizational needs.  Early and effective communication will facilitate better adoption and minimize resistance to change.

Evaluating Alternative PACS Solutions

With the sunsetting of Merge Unity PACS, exploring other alternative PACS solutions on the market can open new possibilities to better meet your long-term needs, including evaluating solutions offered by Merative/Merge Healthcare. Each option comes with unique strengths, features, and capabilities, but also with their own costs, making it essential to spend the time researching and evaluating your chosen solutions carefully.  After compiling a list of potential candidates, be sure to:

  • Research industry publications and online resources to identify potential vendors and their offerings.
  • Seek recommendations from peers, professional networks, and industry experts.
  • Attend trade shows and conferences to learn about the latest in PACS technology and engage with your list of vendors.

Assessing key features and capabilities against your specific requirements is the next step.  Make sure you evaluate:

  • Diagnostic viewing tools: Evaluate the quality and functionality of the viewing tools, ensuring they meet the needs of your radiologists and clinicians.
  • Workflow automation: Explore the extent to which the PACS solution can streamline processes and enhance efficiency through automation and intelligent routing.
  • IT infrastructure: Determine whether a cloud-based, on-premises, or hybrid solution aligns with your organization’s infrastructure preferences and security requirements.
  • Disaster recovery and data redundancy: Assess the robustness of the system’s disaster recovery measures and data redundancy protocols to ensure business continuity and data integrity.
  • Scalability and futureproofing: Consider the solution’s ability to scale and adapt to future growth, technological advancements, and evolving industry standards.

Scheduling demonstrations and proof-of-concept trials allows you to gain hands-on experience with your preferred solutions and provides you with the opportunity to discuss the vendor’s experience, support model, pricing options, and long-term product roadmap.

Exploring InsiteOne: A Compelling Alternative

Among the myriad of PACS solutions available, InsiteOne stands out as a compelling alternative for healthcare providers seeking a comprehensive and user-friendly platform. Below are a few areas where InsiteOne provides advantages over Merge Unity PACS for you to consider.

Robust Features and Diagnostic Tools

InsiteOne boasts a comprehensive suite of features designed to meet the diverse needs of modern imaging and teleradiology providers. From advanced diagnostic viewing tools to powerful workflow automation capabilities, this PACS solution aims to streamline operations and enhance clinical efficiency.

InsiteOne’s diagnostic viewing tools are tailored to support radiologists and clinicians in their daily tasks and include:

  • High-resolution image rendering for accurate interpretation.
  • Specialized tools for various modalities, such as mammography.
  • Customizable hanging protocols and user preferences.
  • Automated study distribution and load balancing.
  • Intelligent prioritization based on configurable rules.
  • Seamless integration with 3rd party applications (like EHRs, billing, and other systems).
  • Customizable workflows tailored to your practice’s unique needs.

InsiteOne’s user-friendly interface and intuitive design makes the system easy to use, ensuring a seamless transition for healthcare professionals accustomed to Merge Unity PACS or other legacy systems.  Key features like intuitive navigation and layout customization options, configurable toolbars and shortcuts for personalized workflows, consistent look and feel across various devices and seamless integration with voice recognition and dictation tools, are available to help ease your transition to a new solution.

Training and Support

To facilitate a smooth adoption process, InsiteOne also provides comprehensive training and support resources, including:

  • On-site and remote training sessions for staff.
  • Comprehensive documentation and online knowledge base.
  • Dedicated support channels for prompt issue resolution.
  • Regularly scheduled software updates and enhancements.

Scalability and Deployment Options

InsiteOne recognizes the diverse needs and preferences of different healthcare organizations, offering scalable solutions and flexible deployment options to accommodate varying infrastructure requirements.  For practices seeking a cost-effective and secure solution, a cloud-based approach eliminates the need for on-premises hardware and leverages the benefits of cloud computing, such as:

  • Reduced infrastructure costs and maintenance overhead.
  • Automatic software updates and security patches.
  • Seamless scalability to accommodate growth or fluctuating demands.
  • Robust disaster recovery and data redundancy measures.

Alternatively, on-premises and hybrid deployment options offer the best of both worlds: data security and business continuity in the cloud, but options for on-site short-term image storage to access historical exams should access to the cloud become temporarily unavailable.

No matter what option you choose, InsiteOne provides a fully managed solution that takes the worry away of system maintenance, security patching, and on-going upgrades, as well as comprehensive service and support.

Finally, seamless integration with electronic health record (EHR) systems and other third-party applications is essential for scalability.  InsiteOne offers full support for bi-directional HL7 integrations, open APIs for custom integrations, support for industry-standard protocols and data formats, and compatibility with a wide range of medical devices and modalities.

By ensuring seamless data exchange and workflow integration, InsiteOne streamlines operations, reduces redundant data entry, and enhances the overall efficiency of healthcare delivery.

Developing a Comprehensive Transition Plan

Once you have selected a suitable PACS solution, the next step is to develop a comprehensive transition plan. A well-structured plan ensures a smooth migration process, minimizes disruptions, and facilitates a seamless adoption of the new system.

Assembling a dedicated transition team with various key stakeholders should include members from IT, radiology, administration, and end-user groups. Clearly define their roles and responsibilities to ensure accountability and effective coordination throughout the transition process.

Data Migration and Legacy System Decommissioning

One of the most critical aspects of a transition is migrating existing patient data and study information from your legacy Merge Unity PACS to your new PACS. Develop a detailed data migration strategy and be sure your plans include how you will address data integrity and backup and recovery procedures.  Once the data has been migrated and validated that the migration is complete, you can then decommission your legacy PACS solution. 

Be sure to ask early on from both vendors (legacy and new PACS vendor) about all migration costs and timelines to complete the migration.  Organizations can be caught off guard if costs associated with the migration project from both vendors are not captured as part of your total transition project.  If your migration project is going to be particularly complex, you may want to have a conversation with 3rd party migration companies that have experience handling the challenges you anticipate with your migration to determine your best approach.

Infrastructure Readiness and Training

Ensure any new hardware upgrades, network optimizations, or cloud provisioning occurs as part of your new PACS project. Conduct thorough testing and validation to identify and resolve any potential issues before go-live.

Be sure to plan comprehensive user training and change management strategies early on to ensure a smooth adoption of your new PACS.  A comprehensive training program tailored to different user groups, covering system functionality, workflows, and best practices will help ease your transition.  As always, make sure communications remain open, solicit feedback, and be sure to regularly update your key stakeholders on implementation progress, milestones targets, and potential challenges or delays.  Continually address any concerns and be prepared to refine your transition plan, if needed.

Implementation and Support Services

Your vendor becomes a long-term partner when you commit to purchasing their PACS solution.  You want a vendor that is committed to customer success that extends beyond the initial implementation phase by providing 24/7 US based technical support, regular and frequent software updates and enhancements, and proactive system monitoring and performance optimization.

Addressing Common Concerns and Challenges

While the transition to a new PACS presents exciting opportunities, it is natural for healthcare organizations to have concerns and face challenges along the way. This section addresses some common apprehensions and offers strategies to overcome potential obstacles.

Cost and Budgetary Considerations

One of the primary concerns of a new PACS is the financial impact of a transition. It is essential to conduct a thorough cost-benefit analysis and develop a comprehensive budget that accounts for the following factors:

  • Initial implementation costs, including hardware, software, and professional services.
  • Data migration and legacy system decommissioning expenses.
  • Training and change management initiatives.
  • Ongoing maintenance, support, and subscription fees.
  • Potential cost savings from improved efficiency and productivity.

Data Security and Compliance

In the era of increasing cyber threats and stringent regulatory requirements, ensuring data security and compliance is a paramount concern for healthcare organizations. As PACS solutions handle sensitive medical imaging data, it is crucial to prioritize robust security measures and adhere to industry standards and regulations.  Be sure to evaluate key security measures such as:

  • Encryption of data at rest and in transit.
  • Role-based access controls and user authentication mechanisms.
  • Audit trails and activity logging for monitoring and compliance.
  • Secure remote access and mobile device management.
  • Compliance with HIPAA and/or GDPR.
  • Breach notification and incident response procedures.
  • Regular risk assessments and audits.

By implementing robust encryption and access control measures, healthcare organizations can safeguard sensitive patient data and mitigate the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access.

Future-Proofing Your PACS Investment

While addressing immediate needs is paramount, it is equally important to consider the long-term viability of your PACS investment. As technology continues to evolve and new advancements emerge, healthcare organizations must ensure their chosen solution can adapt and remain relevant.

As your practice grows or requirements change, your PACS solution should be able to scale and adapt accordingly. Evaluate the scalability and flexibility of potential solutions, considering factors such as:

  • Ability to handle increasing data volumes and user loads.
  • Support for new modalities and imaging techniques.
  • Flexible deployment options (cloud, on-premises, or hybrid).
  • Customization and configuration capabilities.

The vendor’s commitment to innovation and their product roadmap are crucial indicators of the long-term viability of a PACS solution. Assess the vendor’s track record of delivering regular updates and enhancements, as well as their plans for incorporating emerging technologies and industry trends. Look for vendors that have plans for addressing new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).

While the primary function of a PACS solution is to manage and distribute medical imaging data, its impact extends far beyond this core capability.  Healthcare organizations can drive operational efficiency, enhance clinical collaboration, and ultimately improve patient outcomes.  Greater operational improvements come through streamlined intelligent image routing, load balancing, automated pre-fetching, prioritization of relevant data, and the flexibility to add customizable workflows.

In Summary

As the healthcare industry continues to evolve, the role of medical imaging and PACS becomes increasingly pivotal in driving innovation, enhancing patient care, and supporting cutting-edge research and clinical applications.  By selecting a PACS solution that is designed to be modality-agnostic and capable of accommodating new imaging techniques, healthcare organizations can future-proof their investment and ensure seamless integration of emerging technologies.

While selecting a new PACS can be a daunting task, the team at InsiteOne is here to help you along the way.  Reach out to start a conversation and explore the options available as you begin your journey on selecting a new PACS for your organization!

6 Considerations Before Monetizing Imaging Data

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Monetizing Imaging Data

Introduction

Let’s face it, we live in an era where data explodes around us daily.  In fact, we estimate that 328.77 million terabytes of data is generated daily.  Considering radiology annually generates over 74 million CT studies and 275 million conventional radiology procedures (and that’s not counting the other modalities), a considerable amount of imaging data is stored across many on-premises and cloud archives across the US.  However, beyond storing data for medical-legal purposes, what else can we do with all that data? Data has value and maybe you are considering methods to monetize your imaging data.

Healthcare organizations know their data (not just imaging data, but EHR, radiomics, genomic, and pathology data) provides significant value in clinical research and training Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms.  Some organizations sell their de-identified data as a new revenue source, while others choose to “wait-and-see” as they explore ethical and patient data security concerns. 

According to Gartner, Data Monetization is defined as the process of using data to obtain quantifiable economic benefit.  Data monetization is turning data into an economic asset to maximize efficiency, reduce costs, and increase business value.  To obtain organizational benefits while contributing to the advancement of medicine, how should one prepare their data for research, and what are the associated risks?

Data monetization is a lengthy topic that deserves a much more in-depth white paper. But in this month’s blog, we explore 6 considerations you should take before monetizing your imaging data.  Look for InsiteOne tips as read this blog and learn about a few of the factors that will impact your ability to maximize the data you choose to sell while providing optimal value.

Data Monetization Factor #1: Establish and define your business objectives to monetize data.

Before embarking on any new business venture, you need a sound business strategy.  You should decide if 1) this will be a one-time sale, 2) you will establish an on-going subscription-based service, or 3) you are looking for collaborative research partnerships.  These questions help shape the framework of how to market your data services to potential buyers.  After deciding if this is a one-time venture or an on-going service, determine how much data you have available (in other words, are your data sets large enough to sell).  Finally, understand where your data comes from, who “owns” that data (is it yours or does it come from a 3rd party source you do not own), and do you have the proper legal contracts in place to give you the right to sell that data.

InsiteOne Tip

Developing your business strategy marks the initial and significant first step toward monetizing your data.  Defining what you want to achieve is just as important. While a clearly defined business strategy offers a roadmap for maximizing the impact of the data you sell, understanding the nature and volume of the data you have available is equally crucial.

Be sure to consider the value of the data your organization generates.  With a clear understanding of your data, be sure to study how other organizations that have achieved success in selling similar data sets, then take advantage established best practices and watch out for known pitfalls.  Finally, consider that your organization and the data they produce is not static. Your data production will evolve over time.  Incorporate long-term strategies focusing on growth and watch for new opportunities as you evolve in your data monetization initiatives.  

Data Monetization Factor #2: Establish robust data capture, governance, and standardization policies.

The value of data by itself is not worth as much as data that provides key insights or unique trends.  Data enriched with metadata (information about the data you have) provides more value to the data you are selling.  Complete data is better than incomplete data, and data that provides insight into something new, amplifies the value of your data.  To ensure your data is robust, establish early on specific capture, governance, and standardization protocols and priorities.  Standardizing and de-identifying your data is necessary for analysis (how data is organized and formatted).  Governance is the collection of processes, policies, roles, metrics, and standards that ensures an effective and efficient use of the information you are capturing.  Ensuring data is not missing and the metadata is accurate is just as important.

InsiteOne Tip

Enriching your imaging data provides the most value. DICOM fields are complete and accurate is the most important first step. Providing EHR data further fills any gaps about a patient’s history not evident from the imaging data alone. Longitudinal patient imaging records enriched with EHR clinical data and key information from imaging reports is far superior to images alone.  Adding additional relevant information such as radiomics, pathology images, drug therapy and treatment data further enhances the value of your data.  Make sure duplicated data is removed, it’s free of statistical noise, and it’s de-identified (patient health information removed) to conform with HIPAA and legal guidelines.

Data Monetization Factor #3: Pay attention to data privacy and security.

Data privacy and security are extremely important when preparing your data for sale.  You must implement robust encryption techniques, access controls, and anonymization methodologies to protect sensitive patient and confidential information. Conduct regular audits and assessments to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and industry best practices.  Ensure data collection happens in adherence to existing compliance requirements, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU.

InsiteOne Tip

The last thing any healthcare organization wants is a data breach. This impacts partner and patient trust and exposes your organization to significant penalties or lawsuits.  Data privacy and liability concerns deserve the attention of CIOs, CISOs, and legal teams from the outset. Legal teams should scrutinize and revise end-user license agreements (EULAs) and privacy policies concerning the data that will be available for monetization. They also need to negotiate rights to reformulate and redistribute data if your product is packaged with other companies’ data and they need to understand downstream customer agreements for data usage.

Data Monetization Factor #4: Ensure leadership support and alignment from the beginning.

Data monetization efforts should start from the top of your organization.  Developing the strategy, educating key stakeholders to the importance and value of selling your data, as well as the potential revenue streams that can be realized, needs top-line executive support.  Imaging and clinical data is generated by multiple departments, so establishing cross-team collaboration is essential and often needs to be driven from the top down. Collaboration across teams can prompt new ideas for data sharing, potential new revenue streams, or new services that could provide a competitive advantage.  Understanding organizational goals as it relates to data monetization ensures everyone is on the same page.

InsiteOne Tip

Developing a culture where everyone is aligned with the same goals improves data monetization success.  If you are looking to advance outcomes for specific diseases and you have quality data to support research in that area, it needs to be communicated often and well.  If you want to offer new service lines, your teams need to understand those goals as well.  Data monetization provides both direct and indirect pathways as you continue to explore its benefits.  From his book Informatics, Douglas Laney identifies the 11 most common paths for data monetization, and these should be evaluated by your cross functional teams:

  • Increasing customer acquisition/retention
  • Creating a supplemental revenue stream
  • Introducing a new line of business
  • Entering new markets
  • Enabling competitive differentiation
  • Bartering for goods and services
  • Bartering for favorable terms and conditions, and improved relationships
  • Defraying the costs of information management and analytics
  • Reducing maintenance costs, cost overruns, and delays
  • Identifying and reducing fraud and risk
  • Improving citizen well-being

Data Monetization Factor #5: Be open to new opportunities.

Sometimes, new opportunities present themselves where you least expect.  The ability for data to provide value is exponential and many opportunities may not be immediately known to you or your team.  Your data monetization team must be open to and looking for any new opportunities that could arise at any time.  Be sure you monitor what your competition is doing and stay close to and informed about what is evolving in the healthcare industry.    

InsiteOne Tip

You may start your journey by selling a subset of your data as a one-time sale, but along the way, you change course to provide your data as a service to increase opportunities and revenue streams.  Although the practice of analyzing and selling data is not a new economic commodity, it is in its infancy stage within healthcare.  Consider not only new revenue opportunities that may arise, but look for new partnerships, research collaboration projects, and community benefits your healthcare data monetization strategy may provide.

Data Monetization Factor #6: Consolidate and integrate.

Data spread across disparate storage silos creates a messy data house.  Consolidating your imaging data into a common archive provides the best practice for rapid search when specific research parameters are requested.  Integrating data with other clinical systems (like your EHR) is equally important to provide more value in the data you are storing.  Aggregating all relevant data, including payer data, into a unified data silo speeds data analysis and improves your output.  Don’t forget to ensure your data is complete, accurate, and standardized.

InsiteOne Tip

While storing all your data in a single infrastructure may not be possible, removing data silos is a great first step.  Backing data up to the cloud provides global access to the data when needed.  Integrating all imaging silos into a common infrastructure (a vendor neutral archive -VNA – or enterprise imaging platform), will save costs and improve access to your data in context to the patient’s clinical record.  How you ultimately manage your data is every bit as important as who you choose to partner with as you begin your data consolidation and standardization efforts. 

Companies like InsiteOne can help provide robust storage infrastructure tools to consolidate your imaging data. We also provide the expertise to help extract and identify the metadata that provides greater insight, plus the experience from helping our customers monetize their imaging data successfully. 

Conclusion

Healthcare data monetization continues to evolve as the value it provides to improve workflows, identify new service lines, and open new revenue streams make it a worthwhile initiative. Yet navigating data monetization services is complex and organizations must do so with their eyes wide open.  Driving a culture that thrives on collecting, aggregating, cleansing, and analyzing your generated data must be driven from the top down to succeed. Embracing this new frontier opens new opportunities for your organization to help advance medicine.

This blog does not cover every tip an organization must take as they evaluate their monetizing strategies, but we hope it provides some interesting resources, provoking thoughts and insight about the opportunities that can come from monetizing your data. Every organization should continue to explore if data monetization is the right choice to pursue either now or in the future. 

There are many different approaches to take in a data monetization journey, but the factors that must be considered remains basically the same for all.  InsiteOne has experience in assisting our customers monetize their data and we would be happy to engage in a conversation about your strategy, future needs, current roadblocks, and privacy concerns.  If you want to learn more about how InsiteOne can help, be sure to contact us today to start a conversation!  Finally, we’ve created a data monetization checklist which you can download here to help you get started on your journey!