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Epocrates, which is planning on launching a mobile electronic health record (discussed on this site here) is planning a $75m initial public offer in a bid to be a publicly traded company. The company generated net sales of $24.3m last quarter, down slightly over last year.

Epocrates is one of the oldest and successful mobile medical software application developers and this IPO is a sign of the maturation and strength of this sector. [MassDevice]

Updated! This post has been updated below to include comments from the folks at Epocrates

The excitement and hype surrounding the announcement of Apple’s iPad have subsided for the time being, perhaps just a lull prior to the actual release in a few months. Here at iMedicalApps, we were certainly among the many believers and expected that the iPad could make significant contributions to healthcare, such as potentially replacing the physician’s clipboard or medical textbooks.

However, we did disagree at times on the extent to which the iPad could penetrate the healthcare market, for a variety of reasons. The folks over at Software Advice decided to try to get a feel for what the community at large was thinking through an interesting survey they performed. And for Apple, the results of this survey aren’t encouraging – if you believe the results.

Having spent nearly four years learning how to read medical literature, I decided to try to get a better sense of just how valid these results are especially considering the seemingly conflicting results of the Epocrates survey. Chris Thorman, who authored the article on the survey, was kind enough to correspond with me on details of the survey methodology. Here’s a look at the results and our take on what they really mean.

In this video we check out two of the Dragon Medical Mobile Apps (releasing later this year) for the iPhone, Dragon Medical Mobile Dictation and Medical Mobile Search.  We recorded this video from Nuance’s booth at the HIMSS conference

Nuance, the makers of Dragon Medical Dictation, a favorite dictation service among many physicians, announced at HIMSS they are bringing the same medical transcription service to the iPhone.

Many readers may have noticed the recent arrival of a free Nuance “Dragon” app in the App store.  This simple app allows the user to speak directly into the iPhone and receive a nicely transcribed text document 15-30 seconds later, ready for email or for copy and paste.

At that time, Nuance did not specify their future intentions, but many speculated a medical version would be forthcoming.  Indeed, at HIMSS, Nuance announced three new iPhone medical apps: Mobile Dictation, Mobile Search, and Mobile Recorder, all named with the prefix Dragon Medical (i.e. “Dragon Medical Mobile Dictation”, etc).

I interviewed Robert Quinn, Senior Vice President of Engineering and CTO of Epocrates at HIMSS 2010, and he spoke candidly about the many features Epocrates electronic health record will have, especially related to the iPhone.

Yes, that’s correct. Epocrates, the mobile medical app that nearly has the distinction of being the one “indispensable” application for every physician’s smart phone, is going to have a big brother soon.

The ten year old company, based in San Mateo California, believes its base of more than 900,000 clinicians worldwide and its experience with mobile medical development gives it the wherewithal for understanding what physicians need and expect from a mobile Electronic Health Record (EHR).

They are targeting solo and small physician practices and with a price point that is expected to be very competitive. “This was a logical next step for Epocrates,” said Rose Crane, chief executive officer of Epocrates, when making the announcement.

Integration with the iPhone

I had the opportunity to speak with Robert Quinn, Senior Vice President of Engineering and Chief Technical Officer about the forthcoming product. They are planning a shipping target of Fall 2010. The product will have both a mobile iPhone app and web interface. They plan on integrating the features of the iPhone, such as the camera, as well as dictation directly into the app, an interesting feature especially in light of the announcement today by Nuance that they will be shipping a medical transcription application for the iPhone.

It’s fair to say almost everyone has bought at least one accessory for their iPhone.  My own collection consists of two items, a simple protective case, and protective case with a built in battery.  I can’t emphasize how crucial my battery case has been, especially when I hit the 20th hour of a 30 hour on call shift and my iPhone’s native battery is about to die.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the development of iPad accessories, and how companies such as Griffin, Gelaskins, Sanho, and others are scrambling to manufacture products as fast as possible.  Time is money in the accessory business, and the iPod/iPhone accessory business is big money — totaling 3.7 billion in 2009 alone.

Medical app developers have already mentioned how they will be customizing their products for the iPad.  Epocrates and Macpractice are examples of two significant players who have already committed to the iPad platform — and there are more.

With that said, there’s no doubt some health care professionals will be using an iPad, whether for reading medical books or for EMR purposes.  So then two key questions come to mind: What accessories do we want to see and whats already out there?  The following are 5 key accessories:

Health care professionals have been patiently waiting for the expansion of the Android universe to hit the world of medical apps.  With the exception of Unbound Medicine – who have done a very nice job in rolling their products into the Android Market – users of Android mobile devices have thus far been relegated mostly to the world of medical calculators and dictionaries. For Android owners, the release of Epocrates could not have come sooner. If you are in the field of medicine, you are probably familiar with Epocrates.  We reviewed Epocrates on the iPhone before.  And for health care professionals and students, Epocrates, honestly, needs no introduction.  From the short-white-coat student to the tech-savvy clinician, Epocrates has, for years, been an essential tool in refreshing those synapses you made in pharmacology class (or didn’t make). The field of pharmacology is ever changing.  Epocrates helps many of us stay on top of it all, and improve care for patients.

Keep in mind, the version of Epocrates Rx currently available and reviewed here is still in BETA.  So many of the richer features available on other platforms are still missing for Android. Also, one of the difficulties in reviewing any app for Android is the potential for variability in user experience between OS versions, and from phone to phone.  This review is based on the HTC MyTouch, which runs on Android OS v1.6.

Google’s smartphone operating system – Android – has been around for well over a year, yet the marketplace continues to lag behind Apple’s App Store with its meager collection of useful medical apps.  The biggest player in mobile medical reference software is now changing this perception.  Today Epocrates announced the availability of a free beta version, Epocrates Rx, for the Android platform, officially making it an android medical app. [We recently did a full review of Epocrates, including Epocrates Rx, for the iPhone].

This is exciting news for health care professionals who have Android phones – because their numbers are growing.  Google recently announced 60,000 Android handsets are shipping each day, coming out to 5.4 million handsets per quarter.  As a reference, Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones last quarter.

If you’re a physician, medical student, or in any other health care related field, trying to find the best free medical apps for the iPhone is a hassle.  Apps such as “Dream Meanings”, “Relax Ocean waves”, and “Stool Scanner Lite” dominate the Top Free Medical Apps list in the App Store.  Our top 10 iPhone medical apps list contains no such app, and this isn’t a re-hash of the top downloaded free medical apps either.  Rather, this list contains the top 10 free iPhone medical apps health care professionals and students can actually use on a day to day basis.

STDMeister is the first legitimate STD app made for health care professionals in the App Store.  It was only a matter of time right?  Although the proper phrase is STI, sexually transmitted infection, it’s safe to say the phrase sexually transmitted disease (STD) isn’t going away anytime soon – especially for those of us in the medical field.  This STD app aims at helping medical personnel diagnose, manage, and treat STDs.  The developer of this application is MeisterMed, and we’ve reviewed some of their prior medical apps before, with mixed results.  This might be a unique application at a low price point, $3.99, but how useful is it for health care professionals? Hopefully at the end of this review you’ll be able to tell.

The iPhone and iPod Touch platforms have gained huge popularity with medical providers, with Epocrates saying over 100,000 physicians are actively using the medical reference app on their iPhone – and this was back in July of 2009.

Many healthcare providers feel comfortable with the iPhone because of its fluid operating system, and the extra functionality it offers, in the form of games and a variety of other apps.  This added functionality is missing with more enterprise-based smart phones, such as the Blackberry platform.  However, this added functionality comes with a price, and exposes the iPhone to security risks.

Nicolas Seriot, a researcher from the Swiss University of Applied Sciences, has found some alarming design flaws in the iPhone operating system that allow rouge apps to access sensitive information on your phone.

The first app I downloaded on my iPhone was Epocrates. I didn’t think twice about it, and in a way I assumed it was my obligation to do so before I saw patients in the hospital.  Such high regard for this medical app elicits thoughts of a deep history, but it really burst onto the scene in the late 90s on the classic palm PDA platform.  Epocrates quickly gained market share because it offered key functions for free, unlike its competitors.  This tactic of offering some functionality for free has not changed over the years.

Unlike its arrival to the Palm PDA platform, Epocrates is considered the first medical application for the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms.  The free version of the application is one of the most heavily downloaded medical apps in the App Store.

There are four different versions of Epocrates you can have on your iPhone or iPod Touch.  Each version offers different features and subscription fees.  The default application in the App Store is free, but in order to get the premium versions you can upgrade either online or through the app.

• Epocrates Rx (Free)
• Epocrates Rx Pro ($99 per year)
• Epocrates Essentials ($159 per year)
• Epocrates Essentials Deluxe ($199 per year)

In this article, I’ll review Epocrates – Essentials, the second premium level offered, and also go through the key features offered in each level of subscription.  This is the largest medical app we’ve reviewed to date, content wise – so there will be lots of pictures!