Modernizing critical infrastructure without losing access to the data, workflows, and reporting the organization depended on.
Challenge
A leading academic medical and research institution specializing in cancer treatment, transplantation, and cellular therapies faced a significant modernization challenge. The organization relied on a decades-old platform that supported research, regulatory reporting, operational processes, and critical clinical workflows. The environment contained decades of historical data, supported hundreds of users, and served as a foundational system for both clinical operations and scientific research.
The institution needed to retire aging technology while preserving historical data, maintaining research continuity, and ensuring uninterrupted access to information required for patient care and regulatory reporting. At the same time, clinical workflows were transitioning to new enterprise platforms, creating uncertainty around future data availability, reporting requirements, and downstream dependencies.
Forum helped leaders navigate changing priorities, technology strategies, and dependencies while keeping stakeholders aligned around the ultimate objective.
Over a three-year period, the effort expanded into a complex transformation that included leadership turnover, evolving priorities, dependency delays, shifting implementation timelines, funding considerations, and multiple technology platform pivots. Success depended on maintaining alignment across research, clinical, operational, and technical teams while continuing to make progress toward long-term modernization goals.
Approach
Forum Solutions led the alignment of technical and business stakeholders to sustain momentum in support of the broader transformation effort. The team enabled the organization to navigate uncertainty and maintain progress during periods of change that could otherwise have stalled progress.
Forum established governance structures, planning processes, communication frameworks, and decision-making mechanisms to align stakeholders through leadership transitions, changing priorities, evolving architectures, and project dependencies. The team translated technical complexity into business-focused discussions so leaders could evaluate risks, tradeoffs, and potential paths forward. These mechanisms helped ensure that decisions addressed immediate operational needs while supporting long-term strategic objectives.
The team led efforts spanning data modernization, reporting continuity, workflow transitions, legacy system retirement activities, and future-state data accessibility. As requirements evolved and future-state strategies shifted, Forum managed dependencies and maintained visibility into risks across these interconnected efforts, helping stakeholders stay aligned and leadership teams make informed decisions.
Disciplined planning, proactive communication, and continuous adaptation anchored this approach. Throughout the transition, Forum kept stakeholders focused on the ultimate objective: preserving access to trusted data as the organization advanced its modernization goals.
Results
The organization modernized critical data capabilities while preserving continuity for research, operational, and regulatory functions. Despite significant organizational and technical complexity, the initiative established the foundation for retiring legacy infrastructure without compromising access to the information needed by researchers, clinicians, and operational teams.
Outcomes of the broader modernization effort included:
Retirement or migration of approximately 1,300 reports
Transition of 200+ organizational workflows to future-state solutions
Modernization or decommissioning of 240 procedures, interfaces, and technical processes
Successful transition of critical research reporting capabilities to modernized data platforms
Establishment of new data integration and reporting capabilities designed to support future research and operational needs
Retirement of final legacy hardware after more than four decades of continuous operation
Forum Solutions helped the client maintain alignment and make informed decisions throughout the three-year transformation, enabling continued progress despite leadership transitions, dependency delays, evolving technology strategies, and changing business priorities. By connecting stakeholders directly with the modernization work, Forum enabled the client to preserve research continuity, support operational stability, and establish a sustainable foundation for future clinical and scientific innovation.
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