Pulling data from a .jsp page.

[Curtis360it]

Is there anyway to pull data easily from a page that uses .jsp? I have a client that wants to import patient data from a hospital web based records system into our record system. The page pulls up patient information in what looks to be datagrids.

Is this even possible on a .jsp page?

 

[Rieekan]

Sure, it's possible. After all, even a rendered JSP page on the client's machine is just markup. You'll need to use a server side technology to "Scrape" the data you're looking for from those pages though.

- George

 

[Curtis360it]

So would I just set it up to search for certain tags or are you suggesting something else?

 

[traingamer]

Can't you get the hospital to export an actual data feed to you and bypass the web altogether? (If not, what rights does your client have to the data in the first place?)

Greg
"Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." - Winston Churchill

 

[Curtis360it]

The hospital is notorious for not playing with others. The client is a physician who's patients information resides on the hospitals systems whenever a patient is admitted. He simply wants an efficient mechanism for pulling that data over instead of waiting for the hospital to mail the info.

 

[Stretchwickster]

Greg's suggestion is obviously the best and most stable solution. Page scraping (i.e. extracting values from HTML tags) is unreliable because when the HTML structure changes your page scraping mechanism breaks. If the hospital was willing to inform you in advance of any site structure changes you might be able to keep ahead of the game and update your scraping code. However, one concerted effort to export a data feed would be the quickest (in terms of only having to do it once), most stable and efficent method.

Clive

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