Epocrates - Your one stop medical guide

I remember reading somewhere that atleast 30% of drugs in the Indian market are spurious. And that is a very scary number. With medicines being as expensive they are, it is really troubling that you may be spending a lot of money on a product that doesn't do what it is supposed to, and even worse, cause problems for you.

Add to this the quality of the doctors around these days, it is hard to get a satisfying medical solution. My personal interactions with hospitals and doctors haven't been very nice. For instance, I have found that if I visit a clinic for fever (which might be nothing very serious), chances are that the doctor will prescribe 4-6 tests that will cost you a bomb without even touching you. I feel I might as well go to a diagnostic center and get some tests done rather than visit a doctor and take advice. I feel the humanity in the medical profession has been lost in the greed for money these days.

With this background, I am constantly on the look out for a reliable source of medical information. Unfortunately, doctors cannot be ruled out completely but I am always on the look out for the next best solution. And this is where Epocrates comes into the picture. Epocrates is a medical database that provides:

1) Hundreds of diagnoses with evidence-based content
2) Drug-drug interaction checker, MultiCheck
3) Extensive disease images library and pill pictures
4) Integrated clinical details
5) Printable patient medication handouts
6) Health plan & Medicare Part D insurance formularies

They have free and premium services which you can choose from.

This video explains how to make the best use of Epocrates:



The free version has only the drug guides, formulary information and drug interaction checkers whereas the premium versions have much more to offer like treatment guides, alternative medicines, over the counter names, symptom assessments and diagnostic and laboratory tests.

Epocrates is available for devices like the Palm PDAs, Iphone, Ipod Touch and Windows Mobile Devices, making this a very handy tool. An online version of the tool is also available.