Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Voltaire who wrote (54763)	12/17/1999 2:10:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 152472

A Wireless Cure For Doctors By John Edwards The illegible prescription jotted down by a harried physician has become an old joke to many–but not to those poisoned by improperly dispensed medication, the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Making sure that prescriptions are filled quickly and accurately is the goal of PocketScript, software that turns a handheld computer into a wireless prescription pad. Developed by Way Over the Line, a Cincinnati-based software startup, the product is designed for physicians to make sending a prescription to a pharmacy as easy as e-mail. “The PocketScript system fits into physicians' pockets, so it will fit into their daily workflow,” says Todd Helmink, Way Over the Line's vice president of sales and marketing. The system eliminates the need for a handwritten prescription and, thus, its proponents hope, confusion that leads to illness or death. Given the number of practicing physicians in the United States, the market is potentially lucrative. PocketScript runs on a Windows CE-compatible handheld computer equipped with a Proxim wireless local area network card. (Way Over the Line recommends Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Jornada.) To prescribe a medication, the physician simply selects the appropriate patient name and drug from menus on the handheld's touch-screen. The system then links to a Windows NT server–located up to 500 feet away–that transfers the complete prescription from an SQL database to a participating pharmacy via fax, e-mail or electronic data interchange. Storing the prescription data on a server lowers the handheld's processing and storage overhead while protecting confidential patient data. According to Helmink, the system helps everyone involved: physicians, pharmacies and patients. “Physicians save valuable time, pharmacies don't have to decipher cryptic scribblings and patients can receive medication much faster.” The software automatically screens prescriptions for formulary compliance, plus drug-drug and drug-allergy interactions. Another advantage is that the handheld computer gives physicians limited Web-browsing capabilities. “By visiting a pharmaceutical company's Web site, for example, a doctor can answer a patient's question about a particular medication on the spot,” Helmink says. He says one of the biggest development challenges was finding a way to keep the Proxim card from sucking all the power out of the handheld computer in less than 30 minutes. “Our proprietary software allows us to get up to 10 hours out of a unit.” The extra operating time is critical, he says. “If doctors have to recharge the unit all the time, they won't use it because it will disrupt their workflow.” PocketScript is being tested in the Cincinnati area, where most local pharmacies are now accepting PocketScript-generated prescriptions. A nationwide rollout is planned for early next year. Way Over the Line has also partnered with Rx.com, a Web-based pharmacy headquartered in Austin, Texas, to fill electronic prescriptions on a national basis. “PocketScript gives us the potential to provide safer, faster and more cost-effective service to our customers,” says Roger Phillips, Rx.com's executive vice president of corporate development. “There will no longer be the issue of misreading prescriptions or, at the very least, phone calls back and forth to interpret handwriting.” Way Over the Line is still working out PocketScript's business model. The company is looking to pharmacists and insurance providers for revenue. It also plans to sell some of the drug usage data collected by the software–without patient names–to pharmaceutical companies, insurers and other interested parties. “We might have to charge physicians for the software, but right now our business model is to give it away,” Helmink says.

To: Voltaire who wrote (54763)	12/17/1999 2:41:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

450.00 eom.

To: Voltaire who wrote (54763)	12/17/1999 2:50:00 PM
From: Jill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

OT OT Voltaire, Reaven's work is superb, and the fact is, insulin resistance is linked to a host of degenerative diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, cancer. Work at Rockefeller University (I interviewed the fellow personally) show that insulin spikes are linked to the stress response (cortisol is the stress hormone) and that it can derail that response or visa versa (stress increases insulin response) and you get curves that look very much like the curves of Alzheimer's. Stress/aging/insulin resistance are all linked. You can't just avoid insulin resistance by a pill. You have to get sugar out of your diet. People go around eating low fat diets but therefore incrasing their simple carbohydrates (snackwells etc) because they're hungry and they're screwing themselves up. Instead they should have high amounts of satisfying healthy fats such as those in fish, or in healthy oils like olive oil or flaxseed oil, and get away from too much saturated or fake fats (margarine) and completely reduce sugar and simple carbs out of their diet. Triglycerides would go down, insulin curves would be steady, and much degenerative disease would be avoided. It's more complex than that but that's a simple version anyway. JIll