NORTH HOLLYWOOD AND SAN MATEO, CALIF., FEBRUARY 14, 2005
Nation's Leading Hospitalist Network Provides Epocrates Essentials Mobile Clinical Reference Suite to its Physicians
Physicians with the nation’s largest network of hospitalists now have powerful mobile technology to assist them in delivering care to patients across the U.S. thanks to an agreement between IPC/The Hospitalist Company and Epocrates through which IPC provides the Epocrates Essentials mobile clinical reference suite to its physicians.
Hospitalists are the fastest growing medical specialties and are physicians who focus on a patient’s hospital care from the time of admission to discharge. Full-time hospitalists have no outpatient practice and instead work in close consultation with anywhere from dozens to even hundreds of primary care physicians to manage the entire episode of care for a hospitalized patient. As such, hospitalists serve as the hub in the delivery system, making decisions and coordinating care with the various physicians, specialists and other hospital personnel involved in the care of any single patient.
IPC’s network includes over 300 physicians who have over one million patient encounters annually. IPC works with more than 10,000 referring physicians and more than 1,000 contracted health plans. In all IPC hospitalists manage more than $1 billion in healthcare expenditures annually, with practice locations in California’s Bay Area, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Houston, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, North Carolina, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, San Antonio, St. Louis, Tampa and Tucson.
“We chose Epocrates because of it's ease of use, compatibility with our new IPAQ system, and most importantly, the organization of the clinical material is very doctor-friendly. Epocrates is the number one requested reference by our doctors when surveyed,” said Mary Jo Gorman, MD, MBA, Chief Medical Officer, IPC.
“We continue to position IPC as a leader in our space in the areas of clinical excellence, patient satisfaction, technology and communication. Epocrates nicely complements this direction and thus becomes one of the features we can promote to existing IPC physicians, potential new physicians and physicians who refer their patients to us,” emphasized Dr. Gorman.
Teresa Jones, DO, CPE, has been a hospitalist with IPC since 1998, and Director of Medical Affairs since 2001. In this position, Dr. Jones serves in a mentor/supervisory role with the physicians in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Additionally, Dr. Jones continues to actively see patients, on weekends, with between 100-150 patient visits monthly primarily at Banner Baywood Hospital in Mesa, Arizona.
The overall benefits to IPC hospitalists of having the Epocrates suite are its ease of use and the familiarity that most IPC physicians have with the program.
“I use the dose and drug interaction features the most. There are so many new drugs coming down the pike. It is fairly easy to keep up with those utilized or initiated in the inpatient setting, since this is where we live and breath. It is more difficult to keep up with all the new medications which are classically instituted in the outpatient setting,” said Dr. Jones. “Many of these are for more chronic conditions and we rarely get detailed on these. So when a patient comes into the hospital on the new diabetic agent or new inhaler for COPD which his doctor was sampled on last week, I can quickly look it up and see whether it should be continued in the patient’s current medical state.”
The Epocrates Essentials suite was introduced in July 2004, and includes all of the key decision support applications—drugs, diseases, and diagnostics— required for today’s health care professional, seamlessly integrated at the point-of-care. Included are over 3,500 drug monographs, along dosing, contraindications and adverse reactions; an infectious disease treatment guide; 1,200 conditions and diagnoses; and a lab reference covering hundreds of diagnostic tests and panels. Additionally, a key feature for hospitalists is the ability to the minimize medication changes for patients as they move from inpatient to outpatient settings. This is accomplished through Epocrates inclusion of outside drug formularies for major and regional health plans, Medicaid agencies, and pharmacy benefit management companies.
“The role of a hospitalists demands that the physician be highly versatile in managing a broad patient case load. Epocrates Essentials is a must-have reference suite that is particularly suited to the mobile nature of the hospitalist’s practice,” said Kirk Loevner, Epocrates CEO. “We are pleased that our technology is taking hold in this exciting and growing practice area.”
About IPC - The Hospitalist Company
Founded in 1995, IPC employs approximately 300 physicians nationwide and
manages more than $1 billion in healthcare expenditures annually. IPC
has practice locations in California’s Bay Area, Chicago, Dallas, Denver,
Fort Worth, Houston, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, North Carolina, Oklahoma City,
Phoenix, San Antonio, St. Louis, Tampa and Tucson. The company also has
a consulting services division that helps hospitals and other healthcare organizations
launch new hospitalist programs or enhance existing ones. Information on
IPC may be obtained at www.hospitalist.com.
CONTACT: Ross Goldberg IPC - The Hospitalist Company PHONE: (818) 597-8453 E-MAIL: ross@kevinross.net WEB: www.hospitalist.com Erica Sniad Morgenstern Epocrates Public Relations PHONE: (650) 227-6907 E-MAIL: pr@epocrates.com WEB: www.epocrates.com