The proliferation of critical healthcare information requires its accelerated delivery to the people on the front line of medicine: the doctors. Today, the Duke University Health System announced that it will provide its affiliated physicians with ePocrates branded Palm ™ Vx's. The handheld devices will include the qRx™ drug reference guide, providing clinical information on virtually all commonly prescribed medications. Physicians can also access new information, such as drug recalls or new indication announcements, via the ePocrates’ handheld messages known as DocAlerts.
"ePocrates delivers several benefits to our physicians," explained Martha Adams, M.D., and Director of Information Systems at Duke University Affiliated Physicians. "They value the immediate access to clinical information and use ePocrates to avoid medication errors."
The ePocrates qRx™ clinical drug reference guide, is currently used by over 200,000 healthcare professionals, including more than 100,000 physicians. According to data extrapolated from a study presented at the American Medical Informatics Association in November, ePocrates qRx may be helping doctors avoid more than 2 million adverse drug events each year. The study, conducted by investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, also showed that the ePocrates qRx reference guide saved time and improved the physician-patient relationship.
"With an increasingly accelerated FDA approval process, more and more drugs are coming to market quickly," explained John Voris, CEO of ePocrates. "This makes it imperative for physicians to have a broad base of credible information at their fingertips that can be easily and quickly updated. ePocrates qRx empowers doctors to make point-of-care decisions with the confidence that they are making the best decisions for their patients."
Physicians can always access the most current information by AutoUpdating to the ePocrates server via the Internet, automatically updating the qRx database on their handheld devices. AutoUpdating occurs when the physician performs a HotSync® operation, synchronizing data between the Palm Powered handheld device, the desktop PC and Internet.
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.
