Nebula 2/Nebula Two.iso/Documents/PressReleases94/02February94/Healthcare.txt

Text File | 1995-06-12 | 6KB | 137 lines

Item    5424563                 94/02/14        05:02
From:   [e-mail]@INET#     Internet Gateway
Subject: NEXTSTEP Healthcare MCCAs shown at HIMSS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Karen Logsdon
NeXT Computer, Inc.
415/780-3786


CUSTOMERS BUILD ADVANCED HEALTHCARE SOLUTIONS USING NEXT'S
OBJECT-ORIENTED TECHNOLOGY

Object-oriented NEXTSTEP increases productivity of

health information environments

PHOENIX-February 14, 1994-At hospitals, HMOs, clinics and private
practices around the world, healthcare professionals are choosing
NEXTSTEP technology to turn information management into a
competitive advantage and effective decision making tool.
NEXTSTEP, the premier object-oriented operating environment
available from NeXT Computer, Inc., as well as newly developed,
mission-critical custom healthcare applications are being
demonstrated at HIMSS this week in booth #835.

With NEXTSTEP, programmers and developers at leading medical
institutions are creating a new generation of healthcare
solutions.  For example, Mt. Clemens Hospital in Detroit,
Michigan, has developed an object-oriented, patient-care system
whereby the computerized system tracks and manages patient's
demographic records, clinical information, appointment scheduling,
order entry for tests and medication and referral management.
This system took less than two years to build from concept to
deployment.


"We built logic into our new system, allowing it to function like
an executive assistant, alerting caregivers to items such as
duplicate tests and automatically updating nursing care plans for
interventions," said Vimal Chowdhry, chief financial officer at
Mt. Clemens Hospital.  "Our bottom line is to improve patient
care, but we expect the new system will also increase overall
hospital efficiency, uniformity of care, quality documentation and
provide an improved use of tests, procedures and supplies."

Many healthcare organizations have discovered that building custom
applications is one of their key competitive advantages. Using
object-oriented NEXTSTEP and NEXTSTEP Developer, complex and
dynamic applications can be written with far fewer lines of code,
five to ten times faster than with traditional methods, and can be
modified and maintained easily throughout their life cycle.
Object-orientation enables an organization to build a library of
reusable objects, improving programmer productivity and ensuring a
higher degree of consistency, robustness and reliability across
all applications in a client/server computing environment.



The NEXTSTEP object advantage enabled customer Alberta Children's
Hospital and its value-added reseller Logibec Information Group to
develop and deploy mission-critical applications faster and at a
lower cost than with traditional systems.  According to Sam Tse of
the Alberta Children's Hospital, "The most attractive thing about
NEXTSTEP is the reduced cost of developing a system-about three to
five times less than if we worked with another system.  Plus, we
think that NEXTSTEP is much more mature than tools in other
environments."

Advanced systems provide links to legacy data

Healthcare customers are building these new, advanced systems
without abandoning their links to existing systems and data.
Where applications require legacy data integration or information
system resources, NEXTSTEP provides seamless integration.  Through
a combination of advanced ObjectWare technology and emulation
services, users are able to access PC and workstation-based
applications from MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows and X-Windows.  IBM
mainframe and AS/400 systems are also supported with development
tools that allow legacy data to be directly integrated into custom
NEXTSTEP user interfaces.

For customers who require support for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows
applications,  NEXTSTEP comes bundled with a 30-day evaluation
license of SoftPC from Insignia Solutions of Mountain View, Calif.
Users can run their DOS/Windows applications in either full-screen
mode or in a NEXTSTEP window with full support for copy and paste
of graphics and text between DOS/Windows and NEXTSTEP
applications.  SoftPC also includes network support for
applications that require Novell Netware (SPX/IPX) and Novell LAN
Workplace (TCP/IP) network access.

Where customers have large-scale legacy systems installed,
3270Builder from Conextions, Inc. of North Andover, Mass. offers
an unprecedented ability to connect directly to mainframe
applications.  By providing a non-invasive data access schema,
customers can access data that has historically been restricted to
proprietary user interfaces or complex software development
efforts through an intuitive database interface.  As a result,
information systems professionals can build sophisticated graphic
user interfaces to mainframe applications or provide research
access to legacy data without making any changes to the mainframe
software.

Availability and Pricing

NEXTSTEP Release 3.2 and NEXTSTEP Developer Release 3.2 are
available today.  Pricing for NEXTSTEP for Intel processors and
NEXTSTEP Developer is $795 and $1,995 respectively.  Pricing for
upgrades to NEXTSTEP for NeXT Computers and NEXTSTEP Developer for
NeXT Computers is  $195 and $495 respectively.  They also are
shipping today.



NeXT Computer, Inc.

NeXT develops and markets the award-winning NEXTSTEP
object-oriented software for industry-standard computer
architectures.  Customers use NEXTSTEP to develop and deploy
custom client/server applications, using both custom and
shrink-wrapped software.  Headquartered in Redwood City,
California, and with offices throughout  the world, NeXT serves
customers requiring enterprise-wide, object-oriented productivity
environments.

# # # #

NeXT, the NeXT logo and NEXTSTEP are registered trademarks of NeXT
Computer, Inc.   All other trademarks mentioned belong to their
respective owners.



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