Move off an old PACS without losing a study, a report or a reporting day

Replacing a PACS worries centre owners more than buying one. Years of studies and reports sit in the old system, and the radiologists cannot stop reporting while you switch. A careful migration moves the history, runs both systems side by side for a period, and switches over on a planned day. This page covers what that involves, where the risks are, and what decides how long it takes.

Signs it's time

  • The viewer is slow. Large CT and MRI studies take long enough to open that radiologists skip priors.
  • The server is ageing. Disks are filling, the AMC is getting expensive, and nobody wants to buy the next box.
  • Remote reporting is a workaround. Radiologists use VPNs or remote desktop to read from home or another centre.
  • Reports live elsewhere. Reports are in Word files, a separate RIS or an old database that only one person knows how to query.
  • New centres mean new projects. Each branch gets its own server and its own archive, and priors don't cross between them.
  • Support has gone quiet. Updates have stopped, or the vendor no longer supports your version.

What migration involves

Studies. Images are copied from the old archive into SOMATIQ's vendor neutral archive, which we built in-house and designed to scale to 100,000 cases a day, in standard DICOM. Older systems often have inconsistent patient IDs, so records are matched and cleaned as they move. Recent and frequently used studies can go first, so priors for current patients are ready early.

Reports. Historical reports matter as much as images. Report Finder migrates legacy reports from your old system, whether a RIS database or exported documents, and makes them searchable alongside the new ones, so the radiologist sees last year's report next to last year's study.

Patients and orders. Patient demographics and IDs are mapped, and the modality worklist and HIS connection (HL7/FHIR) are set up on the new system.

Modalities and users. Each scanner is pointed at the new archive, either directly in a hybrid setup with an on-site PACS or through a lightweight pusher app in a cloud-only setup. Users are created with role-based access and MFA.

Parallel run and cutover

  1. Set up and test. Connect one modality, send test studies, check that images, the worklist and reports flow correctly.
  2. Migrate history in the background. The old PACS keeps working while studies and reports copy across.
  3. Parallel run. New studies go to both systems for an agreed period. Radiologists start reporting on SOMATIQ while the old system stays available for reference.
  4. Cutover day. Pick a low-volume day. All modalities send to SOMATIQ only, and the old system becomes read-only.
  5. Close out. Confirm migration counts match, then decide how long to keep the old system read-only before retiring it.

Risks and how to manage them

Risk How it's managed
Studies missed in migration Compare study counts by patient, date and modality between old and new before cutover.
Duplicate or mismatched patients Match on more than ID (name, date of birth, mobile), and review likely duplicates before merging.
Old system can't export cleanly Test an export early; some legacy systems need DICOM query-retrieve or database extraction.
Radiologists slowed in the first weeks Train before cutover, set up hanging protocols and templates in advance, and keep support on hand.
Network bottleneck Measure upload speed before you start; schedule bulk migration out of hours.

What decides the timeline

For a typical imaging centre, SOMATIQ migrates the full archive, studies and reports, in days, not weeks or months. We have moved centres off other Indian and global PACS and VNAs this way. We confirm the date after a test export from your old system, because the exact figure depends on archive size and network, and on:

  • how many terabytes and how many years of studies you have;
  • how fast the old system can export, which is often the slowest step;
  • your upload speed, if the archive is moving to the cloud;
  • how many modalities, centres and users need to be connected;
  • the state of patient IDs in the old data;
  • whether reports are in a database or in loose documents;
  • how long you want the parallel run to last.

Eight centres moved in the time of one

SOMATIQ is deployed across 130+ imaging centres in 3 countries. Prima Diagnostics in Bengaluru moved all eight of its centres onto one SOMATIQ system, and all eight went live in about the time usually needed for one (Digital Health News).

Questions buyers ask

How long does the migration take?

For a typical centre, the full archive of studies and reports moves in days, not weeks or months. See PACS data migration in days, not months.

Do we have to migrate everything before going live?

No. Recent studies and reports can move first, with older history continuing in the background.

Will reporting stop during the switch?

It shouldn't. The parallel run exists so radiologists can keep reporting throughout.

What if our old vendor won't help?

Most PACS can send studies over standard DICOM. Reports may need a database or document export. We'll test this early.

What happens to the old server afterwards?

Keep it read-only until counts are verified, then retire it on a date you choose.

Read more

Ready to see your workflow on one platform?

We will walk you through the whole workflow, from registration to signed report.