Docs Flock To iPhone For Drug Reference App

For years, vendors have struggled with how to make health-care professions more tech-savvy. Today, it looks like the iPhone might be just the remedy: Hundreds of thousands of health-care professionals and consumers, including more than 50,000 U.S. physicians, have downloaded Epocrates' drug and formulary reference application.

The free Epocrates Rx software was released in May and has been available at the Apple App store since its launch in July. Since that time it has been ranked as one of the top apps in the health and fitness category.

Health care has traditionally lagged behind other industries in adopting new technology, but that has changed in recent years, according to research from Gartner. Slightly more than 70 percent of care delivery organizations expect IT budgets to increase in 2009, according to the study. Solution providers can expect to see more software and devices geared toward this segment, such as the Panasonic Toughbook H1, which debuted this week.

Epocrates provides on-demand drug information for health-care professionals to reference during a patient consultation. Physicians can use the iPhone with Epocrates to look up the correct dosing for a new medication, or enter a patient's list of drugs to check for potentially harmful interactions. A pill identifier tool helps doctors and nurses correctly determine the types of medications patients show their doctor, as well as those patients cannot recall by name.

A clinical demo of Epocrates Rx on the iPhone can be viewed on YouTube .