“Many physicians want to review antimicrobial treatment recommendations when they’re prescribing antibiotics, but the information can be hard to find quickly,” said Dr. Tom Lee, Chief Medical Officer at ePocrates. “qID harnesses the speed and power of handheld technology to provide physicians with instant access at the point of care to critical information from ID specialists.”

“With qID, I can quickly review what treatments are recommended by ID specialists, select the most targeted therapy for a particular type of infection and then launch into qRx™ to check for drug interactions and adverse reactions,” said Dr. Charles Shaefer Jr., Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia. “I can also easily and accurately confirm that a tried and true drug like penicillin will take care of the infection or whether a newer, wider spectrum agent is a more prudent choice.”

Quickly finding the most targeted antibiotic treatment among available therapies can be difficult. As a result, many physicians asked ePocrates to develop an infectious disease application for handheld devices that could assist in appropriate antibiotic selection. The correlation between increased prescribing of broad-spectrum antibiotics and the emerging problem of antimicrobial resistance was highlighted in a statement made by Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, before the U.S. Senate in September. Providing relevant information at the point of care may help address this issue.

qID is a companion application to qRx, ePocrates’ enormously popular drug reference guide, which has been used by more than 200,000 healthcare professionals, including nearly 100,000 physicians, since its launch in November 1999. qRx provides essential information on virtually all commonly prescribed drugs, including adult and pediatric dosing, contraindications, pricing and drug-drug interaction information. The AutoUpdate feature provides continuous updates on information such as new U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved compounds, changes in drug indications and product recall information.

About ePocrates

ePocrates Inc. is the largest handheld physician network enabling quick point-of-care access to important clinical information. Since its launch in November 1999, the ePocrates network has grown to nearly 100,000 physicians. In addition to the qRx clinical drug database, the qID antimicrobial reference guide and a recently announced electronic renewal application, ePocrates will soon offer formulary decision support tools and additional clinical content tools. Headquartered in San Carlos, Calif., ePocrates is a privately held company led by President and CEO John Voris, former PCS COO and Eli Lilly veteran. The company was founded in 1998 by Richard Fiedotin, MD and Jeff Tangney and is funded by Sprout Group, Bay City Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, InterWest and Three Arch Partners. For more information, please visit www.epocrates.com.