Skyscape have just announced over 300 titles for the Blackberry wireless platform:
Skyscape Introduces Broadest Portfolio of Trusted Medical Resources for BlackBerry
MARLBOROUGH, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Skyscape®, the worldwide leading service for trusted medical information by specialty for mobile devices announced the availability of more than three hundred medical resources covering the drug, clinical and evidence-based medical information for the BlackBerry® wireless platform from Research in Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM;TSX:RIM). Skyscape’s introduction of these resources paves the way for healthcare professionals and institutions that are eager to adopt BlackBerry smart phones in their medical practice. With this announcement, Skyscape further enhances its leadership in the mobile medical information market by offering a breadth and depth of solution for the BlackBerry that is unmatched in the industry.
“Skyscape continues its tradition of providing users with the widest array of medical information, delivered at point-of-care, on the platform of their choice,” said Sandeep Shah, Skyscape CEO. “Since the days when Skyscape pioneered the delivery of medical information to mobile devices, we have enjoyed an increasing acceptance of our solutions by healthcare professionals worldwide. Over the years we have offered the broadest portfolio of medical information for clinical decision-support for an ever-expanding range of mobile platforms. Recognizing users’ increasing need for on-demand delivery of medical information, Skyscape has leveraged its architecture to create an innovative experience on BlackBerry devices.”
The BlackBerry platform’s core wireless, push technology and integrated security provide an ideal platform for the Skyscape STAT experience. The availability of wireless installs and updates makes it easier than ever for users to access specialty-specific clinical information as well as breaking medical news and alerts. In addition, Skyscape’s SmartLink ™ and Knowtify ™ technologies enable clinicians to follow their natural thought process in diagnosis and treatment, resulting in effective decision-support for their patient care needs.
Skyscape medical resources enable healthcare practitioners to improve the quality of care, reduce costs, increase efficiencies and reduce medical errors. Over 35 specialties are represented in Skyscape’s portfolio. These resources span a wide variety of medical information including clinical titles, drug and lab guides, specialty-specific publications, guidelines, health plan formularies, continuing medical education (CME), journals and breaking medical news and alerts.
“I’m thrilled about Skyscape on the BlackBerry,” said Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, MD, author of The Doctor’s PDA and Smartphone Handbook. “Skyscape’s breadth and depth of content truly make my BlackBerry a tool for clinical practice. I now have everything I need for use at the point of care. A lot of thought has gone into making the software outstanding – intuitive and fast, with smooth integration across the entire platform.”
PEPID™ Launches Over-the-Air Downloads for BlackBerry® Handhelds
Physicians and nurses no longer have to sync their BlackBerry® smartphones to a desktop computer to add new resources or update medical and drug information
Evanston, Illinois – April 24, 2007 –PEPID, a leading innovator of mobile medical information resources, announced today that it has launched over-the-air (OTA) downloading for newer BlackBerry smartphones with MicroSD cards, such as the BlackBerry® 8700, 8800 and Pearl™ devices. PEPID users no longer have to be tethered by a sync cable to a desktop computer when adding new products or updating existing medical and drug information. As a result, doctors and nurses can be more mobile and stay well informed at the same time.
This new capability is enabled by software components developed by PEPID™ Technology. They allow PEPID for BlackBerry users to download applications and content over-the-air to a MicroSD card. As a result, new and existing PEPID subscribers no longer have to sync to a desktop for new products and updates—they can even register new PEPID products over-the-air.
In addition to products for individual caregivers, PEPID provides referential medical and drug content for hospitals and healthcare systems. Utilizing BlackBerry® MDS Technology, PEPID content integrates into new or existing hospital information systems for enhanced clinical decision-support, better risk management, and improved patient care and services.
OTA is ideal for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server system wide applications, as well as individual PEPID for BlackBerry subscribers. Now all PEPID™ for BlackBerry® users can be more mobile and stay current easier wherever an over-the-air connection is available.
Once the realm of science fiction, bionics is slowly but surely becoming a reality. Advances in medical prostheses and computer technology are making the dream of building a bionic human a reality. Read the rest of this entry »
Nirav R. Shah, MD, MPH, from the New York University School of Medicine has published a review of The Doctor’s PDA and Smartphone Handbook for ACP Journal Club.
We host the videos to accompany the book here. Here’s what Nirav had to say about them:
The excellent and free online movie clips provide all the basics a beginner may need, but the companion text is a great reference and contains additional material not found online.
Practice Fusion have annouced a free EMR funded by running Google Adsense on the program. This is a great approach to offering free software for doctors. I imagine as time progresses that users of the software will simply ignore the ads completely but new users will probably generate enough revenue to keep things going. They will certainly be busy blocking all the other EMR companies that will be bidding to appear on their pages though…
Practice Fusion Inc., a San Francisco startup, offers systems to put medical records in digital files, a move experts say is one of the keys to controlling health care costs.
Electronic medical records systems generally cost doctors upward of $20,000 to install. But Practice Fusion offers the service at a price that’s hard to beat — free.
The company is set to announce a deal today with Google Inc. to offer physicians and medical groups a Web-based digital medical records system at no cost. The service will be funded by advertising.
I hope they can succeed where other EMRs have failed (or at least not done so well). The technology behind EMRs is embarrassingly easy to create nowadays — most EMRs are just simple databases that act like electronic typewriters and simple filing cabinets.
I believe that conceptually, Practice Fusion is absolutely on the right track. Having a functional (user friendly), web-based (ubiquitous), interoperable, no cost (OS equivalent), highly functional, seamless software solution for physicians, providers, and related healthcare entities is fabulous.
Finally, but most important, how will patients feel about this? The first time a patient sees a Paxil ad pop up on his physician’s screen, the questions will start flying. And the physician will be in the awkward position of saying that those ads don’t affect his/her decision-making, that the company generating those ads is Google, but not to worry, through the magic of technology, Google has no access to private medical records (and the physician will be crossing his/her fingers hoping that that’s true).
No word as to whether the initial model has been scrapped or if this new concept is complementary. One thing’s for certain, it still raises the hackles of privacy advocates.
Since you and your blog community have shown interest in this issue, we wanted to let you know that all Epocrates products (Palm OS and Windows Mobile) are compatible with the Windows Vista operating system
For Palm devices, our initial testing appeared to show problems, and we elected to take the conservative route and recommend that users delay upgrading. However, after more extensive testing, we are confident that the vast majority of users will have no problems installing and syncing Palm devices with Windows Vista systems. Users can refer to Epocrates’ Support page [http://www.epocrates.com/support/] for more details.
Epocrates is committed to maintaining an open-line of communication for delivering information that we believe will be of interest to our users.
Updates will be continually available in the Epocrates Support Center and routinely communicated to Epocrates’ users.
With Philips joining Motion in creating new Tablet PC based devices many may be wondering why Intel is getting so much of the limelight. Well, the answer is their new ‘Mobile Clinical Assistant’ platform that Intel has been developing.
It seems that Intel has been working with Electronic Medical Records software companies and various hardware companies to help both optimize their products for each other.
The current list of software partners includes: Cerner, Cardinal Health, Eclipsys, Epic, GE Healthcare, iSoft, McKesson, McKesson France, Nexus, Siemens Medical, Siemens Medical France and Welch Allyn.
For software developers, there’s an SDK with tools and applications for linking with the Mobile Clinical Assistant API which is present on all MCA devices.
