SAN MATEO, Calif., Jan. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Epocrates Inc., provider of mobile and desktop clinical applications, today announced the launch of the Epocrates SxDx(TM) disease diagnosis and treatment reference and symptom assessment tool. This unique application, developed in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital’s Laboratory of Computer Science, provides intelligent decision support to clinicians throughout the diagnosis process. Developed for mobile devices, including personal digital assistants, the new product allows healthcare professionals to enter patient symptoms and findings to generate a clinically useful diagnosis index to the Epocrates disease reference.
“I am very excited about the availability of this product,” said Michael Karp, MD, Ambridge Area Healthcare Services. “There are other disease guides on the market, but Epocrates SxDx is the only one that will support my patient evaluation and treatment decisions from start to finish. I can see how this new feature will fit into my practice and help save time by allowing me to look up a patient’s symptoms as they are reported without interrupting the consultation.”
Epocrates’ newest product allows clinicians to enter an unlimited number of symptoms, examination findings, such as lab results, and key patient demographics, to generate a list of the plausible diagnoses in the Epocrates disease reference. A key differentiating feature of Epocrates SxDx, is the ability of the application to prompt clinicians to refine their input list based on the prevalence and likelihood of patient symptoms and findings. Potential diagnoses are then seamlessly integrated with more than 1,200 disease topics and 3,300 continually updated drug monographs.
“This integration of a diagnosis index and the Epocrates mobile medical reference content can help to support clinical decisions wherever they are made,” said Octo Barnett, MD, Senior Scientific Director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Laboratory of Computer Science and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
The Epocrates SxDx application is powered by a proprietary set of algorithms developed by the Laboratory of Computer Science at Massachusetts General Hospital, the largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. This sophisticated symptom assessment tool organizes and displays results ordered according to several factors, including frequency of findings in a particular disease, prevalence of the findings in the general population and frequency of disease occurrence.
“Launching Epocrates SxDx reinforces our commitment to deliver solutions that help clinicians improve the safety and quality of patient care. We are proud to introduce this new product offering a more robust suite of mobile clinical applications to our customers,” said Kirk Loevner, chairman and chief executive officer of Epocrates.
ABOUT EPOCRATES, INC.
San Mateo, CA-based Epocrates is transforming the practice of medicine by providing innovative clinical solutions at the point of care and deploying leading-edge technologies that enable communication. The company has built a clinical network connecting more than 500,000 healthcare professionals, including one in four U.S. physicians and one in two U.S. medical students, with the healthcare industry. Epocrates’ products have shown a positive impact on patient safety, healthcare efficiency and patient satisfaction. Epocrates was recently ranked 257 in the 24th annual Inc.500 ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in the country. For more information about Epocrates, please visit www.epocrates.com.
ABOUT THE MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL LABORATORY OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
The Laboratory of Computer Science (LCS) is the Clinical and Research Informatics Division of the Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. The LCS (http://mghlcs.org ) provides clinical and research information systems support to the hospital and conducts active research into the application of computer technology to medical record systems, physician workstations, clinical problem solving, expert systems in medical diagnosis, knowledge management, and clinical research. The LCS also directs a postdoctoral training program in medical informatics that is sponsored by the National Library of Medicine.
Epocrates Inc.
CONTACT: Erica Sniad of Epocrates, +1-650-227-6907, or pr@epocrates.com
