Java HomeNewsJava-Based AppsDeveloper ToolsDeveloper AssistanceEducationCommunityEventsFeedback
Community - Java Success Stories "With willing hands and open minds, the future will be greater than the most fantastic story you can write."

-- Charles F. Kettering

Institution: Kettering Medical Center
Location: Dayton, Ohio
Industry: Healthcare
URL: http://www.ketthealth.com

Kettering Medical Center (KMC) is a not-for-profit, regional acute care center comprised of Charles F. Kettering Memorial Hospital, Sycamore Hospital, Kettering Youth Services, the Kettering College of Medical Arts, and Sycamore Retirement Community. KMC also includes Kettering Affiliated Health Services, which provides a host of other services and programs that extend Kettering Medical Center care to homes and businesses throughout the greater Dayton, Ohio, area and beyond.

The Challenge: Physician Access to Clinical Information
With more than 840 physicians serving more than 150,000 patients a year, KMC needed an intuitive, easy-to-use and easy-to-access application for patient medical data. Additionally, KMC wanted to leverage their investment in their current legacy systems and support skills, while also providing an application that met the physician's needs.

Java here, Legacy there... Problem solved
Combining the "write-once-run-anywhere" strength of Java, the availability and power of the KMC Intranet, and the existing capabilities of legacy systems, KMC developed an application that would meet the needs of their physician community.

With assistance from IBM Global Services, KMC has developed a Java-based clinical workstation application that allows physicians to access patient medical information through any machine running a Netscape Web browser. The application, delivered via an Intranet and Java-enabled browser, eliminates operating system dependencies, and allows for instant data dissemination from any hospital location.

The clinical information resides on KMC's legacy CICS-based health information system and is delivered over the Intranet. The 3270 terminal interface has been replaced with a GUI front-end. The application accesses data residing on the mainframe through an MQ Series-CICS connection, and pulls IMS data from several newly developed CICS-based "servlets."

The application provides access to many clinical reports, including: Lab, X-ray, EKG, Nuclear Medicine, Cytology, Surgical Pathology, and more.

More To Come
Based on the success of the pilot, the application will be deployed ahead of schedule, and KMC is considering Java as the platform for several more applications. This project has directly impacted KMC by providing physician access to clinical data, regardless of their hardware platform, as well as providing an extendible application architecture for enhancing other KMC systems.

History
Kettering Medical Center is accredited by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. Services provided through Kettering Medical Center include ambulatory care, neurology, pulmonary care, ophthalmology, obstetrics and newborn care, gynecology, gastroenterology, psychiatry (both adult and adolescent), and physical medicine and rehabilitation. KMC is recognized as a major cardiac care center, is noted for its comprehensive cancer program, and is known for pioneering high technology medicine, such as positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, in southwest Ohio. KMC provides many types of surgical procedures including emergency surgery, open heart surgery, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, and orthopedic, ophthalmologic, gynecologic, cardiothoracic, urology, laser, and endoscopic surgery. Supporting KMC's surgical services are six specialized intensive care units that care for general ICU, neurosurgical, cardiac, cardiothoracic, medical pulmonary patients, and at-risk newborns.

Support services include a full complement of diagnostic and treatment therapies as well as cardiac rehabilitation, pulmonary rehabilitation, pain management and a sleep lab. The Wallace-Kettering Neuroscience Institute is committed to quality care, research, and education. The Institute's team of physicians and scientists concentrate on diseases of the brain and spine, including strokes, tumors, dementias, movement disorders, and seizures. The Institute combines compassionate care with new techniques and innovative treatments for people with neurological impairments.

KMC's Web site can be found at www.ketthealth.com.



JavaTM is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

CICS is a registered trademark of IBM Corporation.

Other companies, products, and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

Copyright    Trademark

IBM HomeOrderEmployment