What's New

January 23, 2003

 
New Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopoeia Beta

An updated beta version of the Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopeia for Palm OS was released on January 17th, and will expire March 1st. It includes several newer drugs that were missing from the previous version. The beta version is free, but the final version will cost $25 per year.

So, how does the Tarascon Pharmacopoeia compare to ePocrates Rx?

According to Tarascon, handheld content will be updated continuously in 2003, although there doesn't appear to be anything in the program resembling the AutoUpdate feature of ePocrates. Personally, I feel this should be a requirement for an electronic drug reference in this day and age.

Tarascon does not contain any formulary info, which I find very useful, especially for tiered formularies such as Cigna.

Tarascon doesn't include any manufacturer information, which is useful if you're trying to figure out which company to contact about discount/indigent plans, etc.

The cost information in Tarascon is very sketchy, with price ranges rather than actual retail prices (although retail prices aren't all that useful given the variability of actual street prices).

Although Tarascon includes alternative medicine listings, they are not included in their drug interaction module, which makes it harder to check for interactions between herbals and prescription medications (you have to look up each herbal by itself).

Finally, I find the integration of ePocrates Rx and ID to be very helpful, which is not something you can do with Tarascon (although there are other ID references available, such as the Sanford Guide and the Johns Hopkins Antibiotic Guide, they aren't integrated).

Now...what do I like better about Tarascon?

While both programs are similar in size (around 3MB), Tarascon can run from a memory card (although you still need to keep 1.5MB of RAM free for it to work).

Tarascon's drug interaction information comes from The Medical Letter, which most clinicians trust for unbiased and accurate drug information. In addition, the monographs provided are much more explanatory than the interaction information in ePocrates, and they are fully referenced.

Overall, the clinical notes, warnings, etc. in Tarascon are more verbose and generally more informative than ePocrates.

The tables in Tarascon are very useful. While ePocrates has these as well, I've always liked the ones in Tarascon better (maybe it's just familiarity).

Unlike the previous Tarascon ePharmacopoeia, this version looks like a serious contender to ePocrates Rx, for half the price. For now, I'm using both.
posted by Kent 4:02 PM | |

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