DALLAS – Dallas-based TelaDoc Medical Services, a nationwide network of primary care physicians who provide services on demand, is among several IT companies touting their technology and services as ways to help track and combat swine flu.

"The TelaDoc model is particularly applicable to pandemic preparedness since consults are conducted via telephone, insulating physicians from patients and possible exposure to germs," said Richard J. Boxer, MD, chief medical officer of TelaDoc. "Furthermore, physician telephone consults can be conducted at any time and from anywhere, obviating the need for patients to leave home in order to access quality medical attention."

Minneapolis-based Quinnian Health, which is partnering with TelaDoc, announced its "Rapid Influenza Response" module to enable employers to quickly deploy medical countermeasures (antiviral medications and personal protective equipment) to employees, dependents and suppliers.

"It is critical that employers do all they can to protect their most important asset – their people," said Quinnian Health President and CEO John Brownlee.

Executives for Orion Health, a New Zealand-based healthcare IT company with an office in Santa Monica, Calif., sayt the company's Rhapsody technology is providing the mechanism for state health departments to collect data from medical laboratories and share data to support early detection and rapid response on infectious disease outbreaks such as the swine flu.

EBSCO Publishing and the editors of the point-of-care resource DynaMed have made the DynaMed Swine Influenza clinical summary available free to healthcare providers and institutions throughout the world.

The Nashville-based Informatics Corporation of America (ICA) points to its CareAlign technology as a key to identification of disease.

"CareAlign exemplifies the important role of information technology in helping our country to address pandemics and other healthcare challenges occurring after natural disasters such as hurricanes or floods," said Gary Zegiestowsky, ICA's CEO.  "With CareAlign in place, the aggregation of clinical data across a community allows for quick identification of trends.  Today, one ICA installation is graphing emergency room visit discharge data to determine if there is a higher incidence of high fever and flu-like incidences throughout the community."