Headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., Nequalsone develops tools to support hospitals, nursing homes, clinics and large physician practices in their quest for better operational excellence and to improve the patients' overall experience. The company's flagship product, NEOlisten, uses Oracle software running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, including Oracle Database 10g and a number of components of Oracle Fusion Middleware - Oracle Application Server 10g, Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer 10g, Oracle Portal 10g and Oracle Single Sign-On - to deliver critical patient feedback to healthcare professionals in real-time via pager and email alerts. As a result of NEOlisten's instantaneous feedback loop, hospital and clinic staff can respond to patient concerns within minutes to take corrective action, in some cases, saving lives.

"Today's patient feedback method most commonly comes in the form of paper-based surveys filled out just before patients leave a facility or after they had already checked out and gone home," said Randy Jackson, senior vice president, Nequalsone. "Building on Oracle Database 10g on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Oracle Fusion Middleware, NEOlisten allows a patient to be heard and their concerns immediately addressed, before they leave the facility. The difference is a more positive and rewarding experience for patients, higher patient satisfaction feedback and increased patient loyalty rates for our customers."

Getting Smart About Patients
In addition to delivering time-sensitive alerts, Nequalsone is using Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer 10g to build customized reports and publish to customers using Oracle Portal 10g. And with Oracle Application Express, an integrated feature of Oracle Database 10g, Nequalsone can rapidly develop and deploy Web applications such as customer surveys on-demand. Their customized reports offer a comprehensive view of critical patient data and feedback, providing hospitals with the information they need to improve operational procedures, facility settings and patient care. In addition, users can take advantage of an intuitive, role-specific dashboard to drill down into the data to retrieve valuable information regarding specific business or patient challenges. This technology is also used to help Nequalsone's customers create reports that meet the healthcare industry's stringent audit requirements.

Future-proof Software Enables Easy Migration
Because NEOlisten applications are delivered to customers through a software-as-a-service model, scalability is essential to Nequalsone's ability to offer superior performance for customers. An Oracle Database Standard Edition customer since 2002, Nequalsone recently upgraded to Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition to accommodate growth by utilizing the many advanced administrative features available in the Enterprise Edition. Additionally, using Oracle on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Nequalsone reaps significant cost benefits by hosting its entire customer base on a single consolidated database and an open source operating system.

Due to the nature of the healthcare industry, specifically dealing with client confidentiality requirements, security and compliance were top concerns for Nequalsone. The company is able to take advantage of Oracle's industry-leading security features to help ensure patient data remains secure and compliant with HIPAA mandates. Using Oracle Single Sign-On, a component of Oracle Identity Management, the company can enforce common security policies across Web-based applications.

"We initially chose Oracle because competing database products couldn't scale and didn't offer the kind of security we need," said Harry Slaughter, chief technology officer, Nequalsone. "But, we're also getting excellent hands-on support from the Oracle team, and that sure beats the call centers offered by some technology vendors. Our relationship with Oracle is a partnership in the truest sense, and the benefits go directly to our customers and their patients."

About Nequalsone
Nequalsone supplies software and consulting solutions to the nation's healthcare industry that helps healthcare administrators increase operational excellence, ensure a more positive experience for their patients, and increase patient loyalty and satisfaction. For more information about Nequalsone, visit our Web site at http://www.nequalsone.com

About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com.

# # #

Trademarks
Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Siebel are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.