IBIS

Developed for Integrative Medical Arts Group, Inc.

IBIS stands for Integrative Body/Mind Information System, one of the world's most comprehensive collections of holistic medical data aimed at the practitioner.

When IMA president Mitch Stargrove first contacted Fourth World, IMA was publishing only a Mac version of this product, and had a foundation for the new design implemented by a previous developer. We completed that design, added new features, and delivered both the Mac and Windows versions in the timeline originally established for the Windows version alone.

The program consists of four main modules: a databases of diagnostic information, another database of remedies (shown above), a Notebook for collecting medical articles and trading with other IBIS users, and a system for tracking patients and visits. The program also contains comprehensive searching, and user-defined hypertext links throughout the data.

As we worked on the project, we added a unified interface as a quick index for all of the program's contents:

Fourth World also managed the development of a second cross-platform product, IBIS Interactions, containing a subset of IBIS data focusing on interactions between treatments.

Along the way we built a content publishing system IMA's internal use. This system consists of a number of tools for creating and managing content across multiple products, including a custom HTML editor for creating and modifying specialized medical content.

We also built a prototype of a Web implementation of these products as well, with custom subscription and content management systems.

Having accomplished these business goals in partnership with us, IMA has announced its negotiations for acquisition with a funding group, fulfilling the firm's exit strategy.

"The IBIS practitioner program was originally written as a single platform application. Richard Gaskin of Fourth World not only rewrote the program to accommodate a multi-platform application, but far exceeded our expectations in performance and in less time than scheduled.

"Due to Fourth World's expertise and unsurpassed commitment, our product, IBIS Practitioner, was taken from a single platform application to a multi-platform application with an unprecedented savings in time. His attention to detail coupled with a 'can do' attitude was instrumental in increasing performance and reducing the cost of this program."

Larry H. Park
Director of Operations
Integrative Medical Arts Group, Inc.