Oakwood Healthcare's Award-Winning Web Site Takes a Technology Village; X by 2 Provides Infrastructure That Helps Make Hospital Chain's Site Invaluable for Patients and Doctors

FARMINGTON HILLS, MI--(Marketwire - Apr 27, 2011) - Oakwood Healthcare System (www.oakwood.org), a regional healthcare network in Michigan, has a web site that's so progressive it has won the prestigious national eHealthcare Leadership Awards five straight years. What users -- both patients and healthcare professionals -- don't see is the underlying architecture that makes it all happen.

Creating that infrastructure and keeping the site running perfectly takes a joint effort by Oakwood and X by 2 (www.xby2.com), a software architecture consultancy in Farmington Hills, Mich. X by 2 focuses on business applications and building underlying architecture that allows the site to be so easy to use and powerful, says Matt Flores, the firm's principal consultant for Oakwood.

"An easy-to-use platform with tools provided by our partners lets us publish reliable content with easy access to critical applications and a user-friendly design," says Dave Stanis, Oakwood's director of digital communication.

The site has many features that make it so useful to both patients and healthcare pros.

A single sign-on system provides secure access for Oakwood staff and physicians. Doctors and staff can manage appointments and much more. Each doctor has a profile page and can easily update office hours, contact information and whatever else patients need to know. They can upload their image and a small video clip. This helps with marketing.

"It's an easy way to promote the practice," Flores says.

The site makes pricing information more transparent. For instance, a feature called Price and Quality lets users find the average cost of a procedure at Oakwood versus competitors and provides other key comparisons. Administration is easy, as business users can see price and quality information and edit data readily.

Oakwood's online store lets consumers buy items like lunch bags with the Oakwood logo on it or order flowers to send to a hospital room, Flores says. Doctors can order new scrubs and medical equipment like knee braces for consumers and have them delivered.

Doctors and staff schedule surgery through the e-boarding system that's available from the site. The system gives details about the patient, such as any allergies and any other special instructions needed to make the surgery go smoothly as possibly. E-boarding, which is mandatory, ensures that all forms are filled out completely, legibly, accurately and securely, Flores points out.

Today the site's capabilities include appointment scheduling, prescription refills, physician lookup, procedure pre-registration, the Oakwood store and Oakwood Price and Quality. The physician portal includes physician e-boarding, physician credentialing and more.

In the highly competitive healthcare arena, Oakwood is always looking to expand and improve the site's self-service capabilities and keep winning awards. The site's architecture provided by X by 2 helps provide a strong foundation that makes that possible.

Oakwood serves residents over a 500-square-mile area in southeastern Michigan and operates four acute-care hospitals, several health centers and a vast number of specialty services, including four centers of excellence. More than 1,300 physicians, representing nearly every medical, surgical specialty and subspecialty, are affiliated with Oakwood Healthcare System.