Epocrates Newsletter

    November 2005 - Issue No. 53

This Month's Features

Learn & Win Today's Modern Essentials!

What's New From Epocrates?

Where do you CME?
October's Winning Photo

Quick Poll — Have you treated any Halloween-related cases?

Epocrates in the News

Question of the Month —
Where does your drug content come from?

Advocate of the Month —
Barton Smith, MD, Kyrgyzstan

This Month in Medical History

Advocate of the Month

Barton Smith, MD, Kyrgyzstan

Map of Kyrgyzstan Location of Kyrgyzstan

I trained as a family physician in the United States and am currently working as a foreign consultant in the Kyrgyz Republic, where family medicine is in its infancy. As part of an effort to develop primary care services nationwide, I am involved in the retraining of specialist physicians, training of residents, and development of a more effective continuing medical education system for the nearly 2,500 physicians of Kyrgyzstan. One of our primary training modalities for family medicine residents is clinical education and mentoring.

I have found the Epocrates handheld programs to be invaluable as we teach residents how to use up-to-date clinical information when making decisions. The medical system and pharmaceutical agents are unique in each country of the former Soviet Union. This means that Epocrates detailed drug information – such as pediatric dosing, side effects and contraindications – is very helpful for residents when they are prescribing unfamiliar drugs.

The Epocrates Lab diagnostic program has been extremely valuable since local lab results are not usually presented within a "reference range." And, when reviewing abnormal lab results, I can quickly go over a list of common causes without leaving the patient's room, which is more reassuring for my patient.

I use the Epocrates Dx disease reference several times each week as I see patients with the residents, enabling me to give them a brief overview of the illnesses we are considering. Having the information on hand without having to waste time going to another room and looking up diseases in a textbook is critical when instilling confidence in the physicians I’m training.

It is my mission to help redefine and improve healthcare in countries around the world. Having Epocrates software in my lab coat pocket makes that a “Mission Possible!”

This Month in
Medical History

1854 — Florence Nightingale, pioneer of modern nursing and epidemiology, arrived at a military hospital in the Crimea with 38 volunteer nurses, ready to care for sick and wounded soldiers. By April the following year the mortality rate at the hospital had fallen from 40% to just 2%.

Quick Poll — Give Us Your Opinion

Have you treated any Halloween-related cases these past few days?

Please note that poll questions can only be answered via the HTML version of our newsletter email.

We will publish the results in the December newsletter.

Last month we asked: Do you think that health awareness events such as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month are valuable?
85% said yes. 15% said no.

Learn & Win Today's Modern Essentials!

Modern Essentials PackageFulfill your 2005 CME requirements with the MobileCME learning center and you could win one of TEN Modern Essentials Packages:

HP® iPAQ HW6515 Phone + Epocrates Essentials +
iPod® Nano!

Every time you complete a MobileCME activity in November and December, you will be automatically entered into our prize drawing. The more programs you complete, the greater your chance of winning!

MobileCME activities are informative and fun to do any time, anywhere, even if you don't need CME credits.

What's New From Epocrates?

FREE updates, tools, and services available now:

Drug Updates

In October our Medical Information Editors added 18 new drug monographs, including 9 vaccines, and made 69 edits to existing monographs. Our editors will continue to incorporate many more vaccines into the Epocrates Rx database in the coming weeks.

VIEW DETAILED drug UPDATES >

Formulary Updates

We edit existing drug formularies at least once per week, and add new formularies frequently. The following health plan and hospital formularies became available recently:

Health plans: Oregon Medicaid (open-card) (OR),
San Francisco CBHS (CA), WEA Trust Three-tier Plan (WI)
Hospitals: Phoebe Putney (GA) , Santa Clara Valley H&HS (CA)

ADD FORMULARIES NOW (sign in required) >

New MobileCME Activities

We continually add primary care and specialty CME activities to the free MobileCME learning center. Recently added and popular activities include:

  • Endocrine Status Called Key to Breast Cancer Therapy
  • Date Rape Drugs
  • Aggressive, High-Dose Simvastatin Treatment Fails Efficacy Test

Epocrates Dx — Griffith's 5-Minute Clinical Consult 2006

The Epocrates Dx disease reference now includes the updates from the 2006 edition of Griffith's 5-Minute Clinical Consult. Epocrates Dx is also expanded with monographs from our own editors thoughout the year.

**To receive the above edits and additions, please AutoUpdate (sync while connected to the Internet).**

Free MedTools Application: Bone Health Assessment Tool

The free Bone Health Assessment Tool for Palm® and Pocket PC OS mobile devices helps healthcare professionals interpret BMD
T-scores, offers recommendations for treatment initiation, and identifies risk factors for postmenopausal osteoporosis.

Medicare Part D Resource Center

We have created an online Medicare Part D Resource Center to help you answer your patients' questions.

Visit the MEDICARE PART D Resource Center >

Where Do You CME? Photo Contest

October's Winning Photo

Winning PhotoCongratulations to Dr. Michael Cahn (and some Tibetan monks) for being selected as the October winner! Runners-up include:
LtCol Steve Bonning,
Dr. Stewart Gibson, and
Dr. Raymond Martinez.

VIEW WINNING PHOTOS >

This is the last month to enter your unique photo for the chance to win the $3,000 grand prize!

ENTER THE WHERE DO YOU CME PHOTO CONTEST >

Epocrates in the News

We're the proud winners of two Gold Stars in the 2005 MobileVillage Mobile Star Awards. Thanks to everyone who voted for us!

We are also proud of these other recent awards:

  • Inc. 500 — The nation's fastest-growing private companies, #257  
  • San Francisco Business Times — Top 100 fastest-growing private companies in the Bay Area, #8
Question of the Month

Q. Where does your drug content come from?

A. Our Medical Information editorial team, consisting of experienced clinical pharmacists and practicing physicians, develops the proprietary Epocrates Rx drug information content using independent and objective editorial processes and standards. In addition to the U.S. manufacturer’s prescribing information, our editors consult the primary medical literature, standard drug information, pharmacology, medical references, specialty texts, clinical guidelines, specialty society recommendations, and pertinent medical websites such as the FDA, in order to provide users with the most comprehensive, current, and clinically relevant drug information. The information is then carefully distilled into the concise format that is a hallmark of Epocrates content.

One area of Epocrates Rx that requires extensive research to develop and maintain is the drug interaction content, which can be accessed via the Drug Interactions screen for a particular monograph or via the MultiCheck feature. Both reported interactions and theoretical interactions based on pharmacokinetic or certain pharmacodynamic properties of the drugs involved are included in the Epocrates Rx and Epocrates Rx Pro databases. Because our content is built at the drug-to-drug level, the unique properties of each drug within a therapeutic or pharmacologic class must be individually assessed prior to developing the drug-drug interaction relationships. Additionally, the broad interaction statements typically found in package inserts may be extrapolated to relevant drugs in a class. For example, if a package insert includes a precaution regarding the use of a certain drug that is a CYP3A4 substrate with potent inhibitors of this hepatic enzyme, the potential interaction is extrapolated by our editors to carefully researched lists of drugs categorized by CYP450 effects.

Epocrates drug information content is updated at least once per week, with our editors constantly adding new drug monographs and revising existing monographs to ensure that our customers have access to the most current information.  Learn more about Epocrates drug, disease, and lab content >

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