A “real-time” review: First off, there’s the annoying feature that requires you to create an Epocrates account on your desktop computer BEFORE you can access any content. So, um, we’ll be right back. This app, generally geared toward healthcare professionals, is nonetheless available in a public forum like the App Store, so the requirement of an account was a surprise (and there’s no warning about that on the App Store page). We’re back. You’ve got to scroll down to locate “Other – Consumer” under the section which asks your profession, but we’re good now. Now it’s thinking/updating, which suggests it’s a data hog not unlike downloading, say, the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Now it’s done, and we’ve got four new messages: “Welcome to Epocrates!”, “Welcome to DocAlert Messages!”, “ACP/AAFP Venous Thromboembalism Guidelines”, and “Reasoning Training Slows Age-Related Decline.” Whoa. We think we just wanted the “pill ID” section and the “interaction” section.
Here’s our rec for the people at Epocrates: GREAT app, wonderful, phenomenal, and undoubtedly useful. But please, please introduce a “lite consumer” version where it’s just pills and interactions. The pill ID features are very cool — by shape, color, score, coating (if you so happen to know an enteric coating from a gelatin coating), clarity (what’s that?), imprint on each side. So off we went to the medicine cabinet to give this app a little test: shape: round, color: white, imprint side 1: DAN, imprint side 2: 5658. And the verdict: cyclobenzaprine, the generic for Flexeril. 100% correct.
So here’s our thinking in the form of a country song: We like it, we love it, we only want a little less of it. But fabulous, really. (SA)
SA
BM
KW
August 27, 2008 at 9:09 am
Yes…what, indeed, IS “clarity?” We have four choices: clear, cloudy, translucent, and transparent. What about opaque…is that the same as “cloudy?” I’m guessing it is, but when I take an opaque pill whose identity is known to me and enter it as “cloudy,” it doesn’t get identified. And another thing: what’s the difference between “clear” and “transparent?” Doesn’t “transparent” mean you can see right through it? And wouldn’t it be “clear” then?
Aargh! I’ve searched the epocrates site and Googled the web for this info, but I can’t find it. Am I the only user whose this dense? Er…do I mean “this cloudy?”