Omnicell drives autonomous medication management with SUSE Edge

Omnicell’s automated medication management technology helps ensure the right medication reaches the right patient at the right time. Its automated dispensing cabinets simplify medication management for clinicians by guiding them to the right medication, helping secure access to controlled substances and tracking dispensing, returns and waste. With these sophisticated edge devices deployed in more than half of the top health systems in the United States (as defined by Definitive Healthcare), Omnicell helps free clinicians to focus on patient care rather than medication inventory management.

For 30 years, Omnicell’s flagship medication dispensing cabinets were powered by a Microsoft-based device application platform. While this infrastructure was robust and reliable, the company recognized that it could no longer support the speed, scalability and remote management capabilities the company needed. Upgrades across the customer-site environment were long and complex, often requiring planned downtime for medication dispensing systems that hospitals rely on around the clock. In a high-stakes hospital environment, reverting to inefficient manual workflows for hours at a time risked impacting patient care and frustrating staff. 

Security also presented a challenge. Because customers had various levels of IT expertise, vulnerability management for the edge devices was sometimes inconsistent, creating potential disruptions for time-sensitive tasks. Furthermore, maintaining the fleet often required Omnicell technicians to travel to customer sites, creating an unsustainable operational burden.

As Omnicell explored modernization opportunities to solve these customer pain points, it realized that a strategic shift to a cloud native containerized microservices architecture was essential for better fleet management and higher availability. 

To bring that vision to the edge, Omnicell set out to develop OmniSphere, its next-generation application platform. But the existing device application platform presented an obstacle, as Jamison Dulude, VP of Software Engineering at Omnicell, explains: “We were only going to be able to go so far with the tech stack our portfolio was built on historically, so we sought out a partnership with a vendor that was in alignment with our vision of how to do compute at the edge.”

To provide the backbone for OmniSphere, Omnicell selected SUSE Edge, SUSE Linux Micro and SUSE Multi-Linux Manager.

“We realized early in our journey that there are no off-the-shelf or ready-made solutions to address some of the unique challenges of our domain in the Linux space,” says Rajesh Gande, Technical Director at Omnicell. “That is when we realized that we need a partner to work with. And SUSE stood out because they are willing to work very closely with us. Also, the immutable nature of SUSE Linux Micro and SUSE Edge really attracted us.”

Operating in the strictly regulated healthcare sector, cybersecurity was a non-negotiable factor in Omnicell’s decision. SUSE’s validated, flexible solutions are purpose-built for security at the edge. Specifically, SUSE Linux Micro is FIPS-compliant and CIS-hardened, which significantly streamlines Omnicell’s ability to meet rigorous industry regulations.

Another critical requirement for Omnicell was ensuring service continuity for existing customers. As Omnicell evaluated how to modernize its device application platform, SUSE demonstrated a path for helping customers transition seamlessly and remotely from legacy, customer-site architecture to a cloud-connected edge model without disrupting medication management workflows. 

With more than 100,000 devices deployed across customer environments, a disruptive “big bang” migration or an onsite technician-led upgrade model was not viable. SUSE provided Omnicell with a practical way to transform its edge infrastructure while maintaining service continuity. This gave Omnicell confidence that SUSE could support its modernization strategy at scale while protecting the reliability hospitals depend on around the clock.

Beyond the architecture itself, SUSE also showed Omnicell how its built-in automated update and rollback capabilities could reduce deployment risk and support the reliability required.

“The biggest aha moment was seeing the system automatically roll back from a failed update,” recalls Gande. “It made it clear how powerful this approach was going to be — this level of reliability is a game-changer.”

Dulude adds: “This is truly a partnership, and that's what I've appreciated most about working with SUSE. Very early it was clear to me that our philosophies are aligned. And then what I saw was a partner that was willing to work with us, hear feedback and make changes fairly quickly to the underlying operating system and SUSE Multi-Linux Manager.”

Boosts clinician efficiency with 50% less time spent returning items to stock

Powered by SUSE Edge, OmniSphere gives Omnicell the agility, reliability and scalability to deliver a better user experience across its automated medication management devices. This SUSE-enabled foundation supports more streamlined workflows for clinicians, helping Omnicell improve medication management across thousands of hospitals and pharmacies.

“Having reliable, scalable and secure infrastructure helps us to focus on the realization of autonomous pharmacy for our customers,” explains Igor Palant, Director of Engineering, Platform and Infrastructure at Omnicell. “The innovation that we went through with SUSE will be touched by millions of people, when they need it most.”

The impact is already visible in Omnicell’s latest automated dispensing system, the Titan XT. As the company’s first cloud native solution, Titan XT provides an enhanced end-to-end experience for nurses and pharmacists. With OmniSphere running on SUSE Edge, simplified medicine retrieval workflows have reduced the time spent returning items to stock by 50% (Omnicell internal analysis; data on file), easing the cognitive burden on clinicians and freeing up vital time for patient care.

Reduces update cycles from six months to immediate bug fixes

With SUSE Edge powering its containerized microservices architecture, Omnicell has created a more consistent path for building, testing and deploying software updates through CI/CD pipelines. Previously, updates were rolled out every six months. Today, developers can deploy bug fixes immediately using standardized workflows across cloud and edge environments, while customers can choose to complete updates at their own pace, without waiting for Omnicell technicians to facilitate the process.

“We can now do small incremental changes, which de-risks things a lot compared to having to retrain the whole stack every time there is a major release rollout,” comments Dulude.

Containerization also enables Omnicell developers to test software in production-like environments, helping them validate performance across different hardware configurations and increase confidence before releasing updates.

Strengthens security across 100,000+ medication dispensing cabinets

While the legacy platform made maintaining a consistent cybersecurity posture difficult, SUSE Multi-Linux Manager now allows Omnicell to patch vulnerabilities automatically across its entire global fleet of over 100,000 medication dispensing cabinets. 

The new edge platform has a smaller footprint than the Windows environment it replaced, reducing the attack surface and potential single points of failure. Furthermore, integration with Trusted Platform Module (TPM) technology ensures only verified Omnicell devices can connect to OmniSphere, thus protecting sensitive patient data.

“SUSE gives us a best-in-class security footprint and the high-trust certification that our customers find so incredibly important,” confirms Jason Woosley, SVP and Chief Product Officer at Omnicell.

SUSE also helped Omnicell simplify integration for customer-facing security features. For example, Omnicell dispensing cabinets allow clinicians to sign in with a username and password, facial recognition or using a biometric thumbprint. In the previous Windows-based environment, Omnicell had to create abstraction layers to support biometric sensors. With its Linux-based edge platform powered by SUSE, Omnicell can integrate those sensors directly, improving the speed and reliability of biometric validation while helping keep controlled substances secure.

Enables high availability in time-critical environments

In healthcare, downtime is a serious risk. By moving to a containerization and microservices strategy with SUSE, Omnicell’s medicine dispensing cabinets stay available, even in extended offline scenarios. The edge device is now self-sufficient and can continue to support medication dispensing workflows. Updates can now be completed with minimal disruption, replacing the hours of planned downtime required by the Windows-based legacy platform.

“The downtime that our customers experienced during upgrades was the biggest worry for us,” says Palant. “With the new solution in place, we hope to achieve almost zero downtime.”

Using SUSE Edge, Omnicell also gains deep visibility into each layer of the stack, including the telemetry of the edge devices, allowing it to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks before they impact the end user.

With the flexibility of a SUSE-powered edge platform, Omnicell is positioned to push the boundaries of healthcare technology for many years to come. Today, Omnicell is pursuing a One Platform vision: connecting everything from medication cabinets and central pharmacy robotic arms to anesthesia workstations. This standardization will harmonize the user experience and unlock new insights into how medication moves through the entire medical ecosystem. Simultaneously, Omnicell is developing predictive analytics engines designed to anticipate and resolve medication availability issues before they impact care.

“The SUSE partnership is built to last,” concludes Woosley. “They’re a partner that's going to be there tomorrow, and that's helping us look around the corner in terms of security and operational stability, because reliability is the most important thing that we can deliver.”