InterSystems Database Targets Hospitals
By Lisa Vaas |
Posted 2003-02-10
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InterSystems says new post-relational database for Tablet PCs could improve medication distribution in hospitals.
InterSystems Corp. on Monday targeted the hospital market by introducing a version of its Caché "post-relational" database that works on Tablet PCs.
Post-relational databases are also known as "extended-relational," "nested relational," "object relational" or "4NF" (fourth normal form). Whatever the term used, the idea is that these models retain the basic relational table and query language but also incorporate some concept of "object" and can store procedures as well as data in the database.
Officials at the Cambridge, Mass., company pointed to medication distribution as being one example of where Caché-based applications running on the Tablet PC could be improved. "Today, most nurses distribute patient medications with the ability to enter notes and medical records limited to a fixed computer on the medication cart," said Paul Grabscheid, vice president of strategic planning. "We envisage a situation where the nurse scans the patients bracelet to bring up the appropriate record and can enter observations immediately in their natural handwriting. Its an approach thats much less obtrusive and decreases the chance of anything being forgotten, since the notes can be entered at the patients bedside."
To achieve real-time wireless database access, the product has a feature called Enterprise Cache Protocol that uses distributed cache technology to deliver high performance for data-intensive applications.
Available now, Caché is priced at $200 in a single-user version and starts at $1,000 for a multi-user configuration. Caché supports Windows platforms from Windows 95 and on up, Linux, HP Open VMS, and Unix platforms including IBM AIX, Hewlett-Packard Co.s HP-UX, Tru64 Unix and Sun Microsystems Inc.s Solaris.
Read more articles by Lisa Vaas
Lisa Vaas is News Editor/Operations for eWEEK.com and also serves as editor of the Database topic center. Since 1995, she has also been a Webcast news show anchorperson and a reporter covering the IT industry. She has focused on customer relationship management technology, IT salaries and careers, effects of the H1-B visa on the technology workforce, wireless technology, security, and, most recently, databases and the technologies that touch upon them. Her articles have appeared in eWEEK's print edition, on eWEEK.com, and in the startup IT magazine PC Connection. Prior to becoming a journalist, Vaas experienced an array of eye-opening careers, including driving a cab in Boston, photographing cranky babies in shopping malls, selling cameras, typography and computer training. She stopped a hair short of finishing an M.A. in English at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She earned a B.S. in Communications from Emerson College. She runs two open-mic reading series in Boston and currently keeps bees in her home in Mashpee, Mass.
