WATERTOWN, Mass., June 19, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As the provider of the top medical app for U.S. physicians, Epocrates, Inc., an athenahealth company (Nasdaq:ATHN), serves as the conduit for organizations to deliver succinct and actionable content to clinicians at the point of care. The company has expanded collaborations with three industry-leading organizations—Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®)—to ensure valuable content is getting into the hands of the more than one million healthcare professionals in the Epocrates member network:
- CDC works with Epocrates to educate physicians on topics such as hepatitis screening for baby boomers, emergency response to blast injuries, immunization updates, emerging resistant bacteria and local disease outbreaks. Epocrates can micro-target alerts to clinicians by region or specialty to ensure that the most relevant content is being received in a digestible mobile format.
CDC has also hand-selected patient education handouts to be hosted on the Epocrates online product for clinicians to conveniently print for or email to patients before leaving the office. Popular patient-friendly handout topics include weight management and sexually transmitted infections.
- AHRQ provides a way for health professionals to access up-to-date information through the National Guideline Clearinghouse and issues comparative effectiveness reports that provide a basis for sound clinical decisions. Since clinicians are accustomed to relying on Epocrates, it is an organic extension for AHRQ's information to be readily available in the application. To date in 2013, Epocrates has selected more than 35 guidelines to be featured via its targeted DocAlert messaging system, delivering a total of 5,306,920 messages to clinicians' mobile devices. The timely and convenient delivery of these actionable guidelines has helped impact patient treatment in areas such as GERD, drug allergy and cancer screening.
Additionally, the popular AHRQ electronic preventive services selector tool (EPSS) is conveniently accessible within the free Epocrates app.
- Leveraging its expertise in translating complex or extensive information into a succinct, user-friendly format, Epocrates recently expanded its free app based on the industry-leading NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®). Oncologists and hematologists can quickly and intuitively navigate select NCCN Guidelines for prostate, breast and colon cancers, with additional tumor types forthcoming.
Created specifically for mobile devices, the four star-rated iPhone app provides quick access to NCCN Guideline content with minimum steps.
"Epocrates knows how to present information in a digestible format and has made the NCCN Guidelines tremendously easy to use," said Dr. Russell Pachynski of Palo Alto, Calif. "What can I say — they have a secret sauce that works. I know if it comes from Epocrates, it will have all the key info that I need and will be highly relevant to my practice."
"Our team of medical editors evaluate the rich content made available by these gold-standard content providers and translate it into a clinician-friendly format and language," said Dr. Anne Meneghetti, director of clinical communications for Epocrates. "We call it 'Epocratizing' content, which our clinician network has come to expect from us in the app they rely on frequently."
About Epocrates, Inc.
Epocrates, Inc., an athenahealth company, is recognized for developing the #1 medical application among U.S. physicians for clinical content, practice tools, and health industry engagement at the point of care. Epocrates has established a loyal network of more than one million health care professionals, including 50 percent of U.S. physicians, who routinely use its intuitive solutions to help streamline workflow and improve patient care. For more information, please visit www.epocrates.com/company.
About athenahealth, Inc.
athenahealth is a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health record (EHR), practice management, and care coordination. athenahealth's mission is to be caregivers' most trusted service, helping them do well doing the right thing. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com.
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CONTACT: Holly Spring athenahealth, Inc. (Media) hspring@athenahealth.com 617-402-1631 Erica Sniad Morgenstern Epocrates, Inc. (Media) pr@epocrates.com 650-227-6907 Dana Quattrochi athenahealth, Inc. (Investors) investorrelations@athenahealth.com 617-402-1329
