Customer Challenges

A leading network of Petcare hospitals faced significant challenges in accessing the medical records of patients across the hospitals within the network. The original Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) desktop application that used data from a local datastore was becoming increasingly difficult to provide data access across hospitals, maintain, scale, and adapt to the evolving needs of their network. The key pain points included:

• Limited Accessibility: Due to its desktop-only nature, the application or data was inaccessible outside of hospital workstations, hindering collaboration.

• Complex Deployment: Updates and new features required complex and time-consuming deployment processes, slowing down innovation.

• Fragmented Medical Records: Medical records were siloed, making it difficult to obtain a comprehensive view of patient health across different hospital locations.

• Aging Technology Stack: The outdated WPF application created significant technical debt, impacting performance and maintainability.

The client needed a solution that would provide seamless, real-time access to critical patient information, improve searchability, enhance user experience, and ensure cross-hospital data visibility.

Partner Solution

Cloud IQ implemented a strategic modernization approach, leveraging the “Strangler fig” pattern. Microsoft states, “This pattern incrementally migrates a legacy system by gradually replacing specific pieces of functionality with new applications and services.” In this case, we augmented the legacy WPF desktop application with a modern web-based module to provide data access across different locations, while gradually migrating functionality.

• Angular Web Application: Developed an Angular web application that interfaced with .NET Core micro-services and orchestrated data across the hospitals.

• Chromium Window Integration: Integrated the Angular web application into the existing WPF desktop application within a Chromium window. This allowed for a seamless transition and gradual modernization, injecting new functionalities into the legacy system.

• New Modules & Revenue Growth: The modernization enabled the addition of two new modules, which included patient referrals across clinics, boosting the network’s revenue.

• AI-Assisted Development:
  • Legacy Application Enrichment: Utilized AI-assisted techniques to enrich the legacy application, optimizing performance, improving code structure, and reducing technical debt (e.g., GitHub Copilot).
  • Smart Code Completion & Optimization: Employed AI-powered tools for intelligent code completion and optimization, reducing development effort and improving overall code quality.

Design & Architecture Approach

Customer Benefits

Cloud IQ’s AI-augmented “strangler fig” modernization approach successfully addressed the client’s challenges by integrating a modern web application into their legacy desktop system. This pattern allowed for a phased and low-risk migration, minimizing disruption to existing workflows. The use of AI-assisted development tools accelerated the development process and improved code quality. This project demonstrates the effectiveness of the “strangler fig” strategy in leveraging existing assets while introducing modern technologies to achieve significant business outcomes.

Key benefits included:

• Enhanced Accessibility: Real-time access to patient records from any location via the web module, improving collaboration and efficiency.

• Simplified Deployment: Streamlined deployment of updates and new features via a CI/CD pipeline for the web module, reducing time and effort. 

• Unified Patient View: Consolidated medical records across hospitals, enabling a comprehensive view of patient health and improving care coordination. 

• Reduced Technical Debt: Gradual migration to a modern architecture, following the “strangler fig” pattern, reduced technical debt and improved application maintainability.

• Increased Revenue: The introduction of new modules like patient referrals boosted network’s revenue.

Products Used

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), .NET Core, Angular, Chromium Embedded Framework, CI/CD Pipelines, GitHub Copilot.