ePocrates Essentials

29 NOV 2004

Epocrates Essentials

Software for professionals doesn’t come any more comprehensive than the exhaustive databases for the medical world brought to us from the folks at Epocrates.

If any medico does not avail himself of this indispensable information he is not doing himself a favour, nor his patient!

Today we’re looking at the Essentials suite of software for the PocketPC.

We do this not from a medical professional’s point of view but with the somewhat biased eye of someone who appreciates well-crafted software.

The “Need to Know”

It’s good to revisit the Epocrates experience.

About a year and a half ago we looked at their Rx Pro package and surprisingly PocketPCReviews.net still is right up there in the Google search for this product.

Epocrates has a good name in the medical field for their software which initially only came out on Palm devices.

The Rx Pro product impressed me back then and the integrated suite of software has gone from strength to strength since then.

What’s the essence of the Essentials package?

This is what you’ll find:

It’s an all-in-one mobile guide to drugs, diseases and diagnostics.

The core of the program is the Rx Pro (drug reference) database with the Dx database (disease reference based on 5MCC) plus Epocrates Lab (new diagnostic reference).

The absolute key plus in this package is that you can update it automatically every day which, makes all the usual paper tomes just paper weights in my opinion.

Remember Vioxx?

If you missed the big media circus on that and were still consulting your printed references you’d be out of date. Epocrates also has the DocAlert feature to ensure that nothing essential escapes your “need to know”.

We’ll look at some of the other features in a moment.

Installation

I install most applications to SD or CF cards. This keeps the main memory free for critical applications.

Epocrates software doesn’t take kindly to installation onto cards as I found out the hard way.

In fact, the company doesn’t support it (yet). It has to do the with AutoUpdate process.

Currently, AutoUpdate works by sending the deltas (the portions of the database that have changed) rather than the whole product each time.

According to their Support Team: “This works because the main memory in Pocket PC and Palm devices allows this dynamic process. Expansion cards are static. Processing the deltas would be a hugely time consuming process. Expansion card support would require a special version of AutoUpdate that would ignore the deltas and simply send the whole database every time. Needless to say, this would dramatically increase AutoUpdate processing times.”
Now, I was still able to install to my 1Gig SD card as for me this application is not critical but the performance was poor.

I first thought it had to do with it being a massive database. It took 12 seconds to open the program on my iPAQ 2210, not the fastest machine around, yet a good, stable work horse. To see whether this was normal for this program running on the Microsoft Mobile software, we installed it also on our other test platform, a Toshiba e750. There are some known issues with installation to the Tosh. Result: Putting it in flash memory didn’t improve opening times either.

I have no doubt that it will be much faster when installed in main memory and if you use this software as a professional that’s what you would do. The installation takes less than 10MB which is easily accommodated on all PPCs. Just make sure that you do a backup onto card after installation in case you forgot to charge up your trusted oracle…

When you first download the program from the Epocrates site the file checks in at a modest 2MB. Installation on your handheld is smooth but it’s a bit disconcerting to read “Your subscription has expired” when you want to open the program.

What needs to happen next is the downloading of some 5MB of data in the initial AutoUpdate.

It doesn’t say that you’d better order a pizza & coffee because it’s going to take about an hour on a 56k modem connection. I assumed that the program would be reasonably up to date when you first download it, but no.

Now if there were some instructions and indications as to how big a download you might expect, fine, but when nothing on the screen showed progression for 10 or 20 mins, I pulled the plug and reinstalled. I even called Goldsupport after hours (so at least I got to check out their excellent customer care!) only to be reassured that patience is the name of the game for that first AutoUpdate. They did agree that some clear instructions on what to expect might be in order.

Expectations

Talking about expectations: this review covers the Essentials program.

We looked at the Rx Pro package extensively last year.

Now, in my mind, a Pro label indicates this is the one to get when a) you are a professional and/or b) you want The Works with every possible feature.

When you just want the (bare) essentials you might expect the Epocrates Essentials package to be what you expected: a good solid program but not with some of the features of a Pro package.

At least that’s the interpretation of my Health Fund here in Australia: they cover me for just the essentials…

I suggested to the Epocrates folks to do a little market research outside their office: what do people expect to get when comparing a “Pro” and an “Essentials” package?

They may be surprised!

Anyway, this Essentials program is the most expensive one in the Epocrates stable at a reasonable $140 for a one-year subscription.

It has the Rx Pro (drugs), Dx (diseases) and Lab (diagnostics) data bases working seamlessly together and this integration is again an absolute must for the busy professional.

In my previous review I stipulated that my purpose was to look at this product from a totally different perspective than that from a health care professional. Rather I look at a program from the perspective of a seasoned PocketPC user, checking for how well a product is designed, how easy it is to use for the average, reasonably computer-literate user.

The peer reviews of medicos cover all the content side of the program. I won’t even go there lest I be smitten by any of the 1200 illnesses and diseases in the very extensive database!

Those reviews, incidentally, all are done, using Palm handhelds. This site covers the PocketPC platform and with PPCs getting the lion share of the market these days, more health care pros might like to see a review based on Microsoft’s Mobile platform.

The PocketPC program should “essentially” be the same as its Palm counterparts. Yet, there are differences.

Weight-based dosing in the Rx database is not available in the PPC version. This should be easy to implement though. Also, the MedTools section does not include MedMath, which has more than 30 convenient medical calculators such as BMI and Peak Flow. I’m assured by Epocrates that this will indeed be coming in the next Quarter.

Featuring….

Most of the features are easily discernable from the screenshots.

I’ll just draw particular attention to the new LAB section with hundreds of diagnostic tests and panels.

Noteworthy is also to remember that the Rx section includes an extensive list of alternative (herbal) medication and with MultiCheck, which checks up to 30 drugs or herbal medicines against each other for potential drug to drug or drug to herbal interactions, you can imagine how important this feature is and what a time saver!

Finally, the ID section is also a great resource as you can search for infectious disease treatments by (Body) "System", "Bug" or "Drug" medicines.

Conclusion

Life as a professional (whatever persuasion) can be pretty hectic and complicated. Keeping up with literature is one thing but the need to use up to date reference material is paramount.

You can not afford to get it wrong. And because making the right diagnosis is so convoluted and tricky, you need all the help of an integrated database that cuts down on errors and time.

It may also impress your patients to see that you’re up to speed with technology in a field that owes so much to modern science and hi-tech.

Recommendation?

Don’t just take my word for it. Thousands of health care professionals have already given their verdict.

Just download it and see for yourself if it doesn’t forever change the way you practice.

Can it be improved upon?

Of course! I’ve hinted at a few things and being the responsive mob that they are, Epocrates will continue to improve the product.

I just hope that the PocketPC platform gets the pride of place it rightfully should occupy. But them again, I’m slightly biased…J