GAITHERSBURG, MD – InstantDx/OnCallData has released updated mobile applications for the iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry and Android devices that will provide physicians, hospitals and emergency rooms functionality to complement its new state-of-the-art portal.

It is the latest development for a pioneer firm that launched the first true two-way electronic connection to pharmacies, the first regional e-prescribing initiative (in Rhode Island) and the first electronic-prescribing system certified by Surescripts, say company executives.

[See also: More than 140,000 physicians on growing list of e-prescribers.]

“The newly updated mobile applications were carefully designed to maintain the same look and feel, as well as functionality, as the desktop and portal products that are currently used so successfully by physicians and their staff, hospitals, and health information exchanges,” said Allan M. Weinstein, MD, chairman of InstantDx/OnCallData.

"The key is to have a platform design that can be easily adapted for ongoing innovation, yet still fit in with the workflow requirements in today’s portal, desktop, tablet and smartphone work environments," he added.

InstantDx/OnCallData products, used for nearly a decade by physician offices and hospitals nationwide, emphasize intuitive interface and ease of use while providing multiple clinical modules.

All OnCallData products provide the patient-safety benefits associated with the coordination of medication reconciliation and e-prescribing, in the hospital and in the outpatient setting.

Medication reconciliation includes:

• an actionable, real-time, active and inactive-medication list (which can also be tied to the diagnoses)
• drill-down features that allow the option of viewing the individual written (historical) prescriptions
• creating a new or refill prescription.

Prior to routing new prescriptions or renewals to any of the more than 56,000 community and mail-order pharmacies nationwide (such as Medco, Express Scripts and CVS/Caremark), OnCallData’s electronic prescribing offers a complete drug-utilization review that checks drug-to-drug interactions, drug-to-allergy interactions, drug-to-diagnosis contraindications, patient eligibility and formulary.

“We took the time to evaluate all of the electronic-prescribing medication-reconciliation portal front-end products that link to master patient indexes (MPIs),” said Dominick Bizzarro, CEO of Health Information Exchange New York (HIXNY). “By far, the InstantDx/OnCallData portal offers the most intuitive, comprehensive, yet easy-to-use product on the market.”

[See also: Pharmacists rally for tougher e-prescribing rules.]

The OnCallData Community Health Portal provides hospital systems and regional health information organizations (RHIOs) with a patient-centric view – a single point of access for electronic prescribing that reconciles medication history across multiple providers. This ensures that healthcare providers have access to a complete, up-to-date record of their patient’s medication history from a community-wide vantage point at the point of care, and are aware of medications prescribed outside of their particular practice or hospital.

Additionally, the Community Health Portal provides all of the stakeholders in the prescribing process – including patients, physicians, pharmacists, and payers – with a unified hub for managing prescriptions.

By having a single source of medications and allergies for every patient, the portal is designed with the goal to reduce adverse prescription-drug reactions, which cost the United States healthcare system $136 billion annually, according to the FDA,  and put numerous patients at risk for debilitating long-term hospital stays or even death.

Chosen by NDCHealth to be its exclusive e-prescribing solution for Medisoft, Lytec and Concept, OnCallData physician users are able to take advantage even today of its real-time, two-way interface with these products (now owned by McKesson).

Misys eScripts (OnCallData with Misys branding) is also being used by physician practices, in keeping with a focus on interoperability, as InstantDx/OnCallData is able to interface with any electronic medical record or practice management system.