When an academic medical center team realized its Cisco conference room equipment was nearing end-of-life, the clock began to tick. With a June 1 cutoff approaching—seven video-enabled rooms, including high-stakes lectures and executive meetings, were at risk of going dark for virtual collaboration. That’s when they turned to their trusted IT partner, Trace3, who brought in a familiar name: RoomReady.

RoomReady had previously worked with the academic medical center, so they knew the existing spaces and standards. This project wasn’t only about replacing codecs—it was about finding a solution to a bigger question: do we patch and piece things together, or take this as an opportunity to rethink how our rooms are used?

RoomReady worked with the academic medical center team to weigh their options: keep the old system running with limited, reduced functionality and rising support costs, or modernize with a simplified, future-ready design. They chose to modernize their AV solutions across spaces threatening to reach end of life.

Starting in late 2024, RoomReady partnered with the center’s IT team and Trace3 to map out a strategy built on three principles: simplicity, consistency, and scalability. Every step followed The RoomReady Way, their patented process that simplified, accelerated, and produced a successful outcome. The team identified affected rooms, evaluated salvageable technology, and planned for future needs. They stayed platform-agnostic while focusing on use cases like lecture capture, town halls, and board meetings. Wherever possible, unnecessary complexities such as wall plates, matrix switchers, and outdated control panels were removed.

The refresh resulted in sleeker spaces, a smaller support footprint, and a more seamless user experience. The boardroom was redesigned for executive meetings with cinematic camera tracking, streamlined control, and Cisco-native audio that eliminated external DSPs. Lecture halls and auditoriums saw matrix switchers retired, inputs simplified, and even the last VCR removed. Training rooms were standardized for intuitive, modern experiences across layouts. Even the control was unified: Crestron handled backend routing, but Cisco Navigator became the single interface—no extra panels, no confusion.

By engaging early, the academic medical center avoided downtime and gained a clear, more cohesive collaboration ecosystem. The project delivered more than compliance with an end-of-life deadline—it created a foundation for the future of AV reliability. The center modernized seven rooms before Cisco’s cutoff, preventing outages and keeping critical sessions running. Through the modernization of their rooms, they reduced support needs and freed internal IT staff from repetitive troubleshooting. Most importantly, the new Cisco-native environment is now scalable and upgrade-ready for the next five to ten years.

What started as a race against end-of-life hardware became a strategic win for the academic medical center. By partnering with RoomReady and Trace3, they didn’t just replace aging codecs—they reimagined their collaboration spaces for simplicity, reliability, and future growth. The result is a consistent, modern AV experience that will serve their academic mission for years to come.