DoubleCheckMD.com -- Questions & Answers

1. What is Enhanced Medical Decisions, Inc.?

1. Enhanced Medical Decisions, Inc. is a health information technology (health IT) company that develops advanced "natural language" technology solutions to address healthcare industry issues in the U.S. Enhanced Medical Decisions develops solutions that deliver detailed, personalized, understandable and often critical medical information to consumers and medical professionals.

2. What is DoubleCheckMD.com?

1. DoubleCheckMD.com -- developed by Enhanced Medical Decisions, Inc. -- is a powerful, first-ever, online medical solution that uses "natural language" search technology, empowering users to quickly and easily find accurate information on drug interactions and reactions. DoubleCheckMD.com covers all over-the-counter and many herbal remedies as well as prescription drugs.

3. How do I use DoubleCheckMD.com?

1. Go to www.doublecheckmd.com and begin using this first-ever medical search technology. Now that we are in Open Beta, anyone can experience the benefits of DoubleCheckMD.com (no passwords required). Thank you to all who tested the site and helped us reach this next phase. We will continue to refine DoubleCheckMD.com with input from people like you. Please send any comments to: Feedback@enhancedmd.com

4. Why is DoubleCheckMD.com an important and useful tool for consumers and medical professionals?

1. Today, Adverse Drug Reactions are the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Consumers are often overwhelmed by and confused about all of the information regarding medications. Also, before now, comprehensive information regarding drug interactions was readily available to medical professionals only. Now, with DoubleCheckMD.com, consumers and medical professionals can save vast amounts of time by eliminating irrelevant searches when looking for important information about one's medical conditions, medications, mysterious drug side effects and what may be lifesaving data.

5. How serious and common are Adverse Drug interactions for those on medications?

1. In the U.S. alone, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research:
   
   • There are over two million serious Adverse Drug Reactions each year.
   • Adverse Drug Reactions are the fourth leading cause of death.
   • Adverse Drug Reactions account for approximately 100,000 deaths each year.
   • One out of five injuries or deaths to hospitalized patients each year is caused by Adverse Drug Reactions.

6. How does DoubleCheckMD.com work?

1. DoubleCheckMD.com's proprietary “natural language” medical search technology helps users quickly and easily know whether the drugs they are using or prescribing may be causing an Adverse Drug Reaction. Users simply enter the drugs in question and indicate the symptoms they or a patient are experiencing using words with which they are comfortable. For example, they can write “my left ear is ringing and I feel woozy." Within seconds, DoubleCheckMD.com lets them know if any of the indicated medications or drug combinations have been reported to cause the symptoms being experienced.

7. Is DoubleCheckMD useful if I don't have any symptoms to check?

1. DoubleCheckMD.com covers you no matter what, even if you don't have any symptoms to check! DoubleCheckMD.com's natural language search technology powers no not only our ground breaking drug-symptom interaction checker but it also powers our drug-drug interaction and drug-side effect checker systems as well! This means that you can quickly and easily enter any drugs you might be taking and see what the possible drug-drug interactions and side effects from your drugs might be. Checking your drug interactions and their side effects is an important step, recommended by the FDA, to insuring your drugs are safe for you to take. DoubleCheckMD.com makes it easy!

8. Who created DoubleCheckMD.com?

1. Dr. Marlene Beggelman, the founder and CEO of Enhanced Medical Decisions, Inc., has innovated healthcare technologies for over 25 years. Having led numerous companies from inception through launch, Dr. Beggelman has invented ways to directly address many difficult issues confronting the quality of healthcare in the U.S. via technology. Currently, Dr. Beggelman and her team are focusing their efforts on DoubleCheckMD.com. Dr. Beggelman is an Internist with an MD degree from Harvard Medical School, a degree in Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health, and a degree in Physics from the University of Massachusetts.

9. What should every consumer who uses prescription, over-the-counter and/or herbal remedies know about DoubleCheckMD.com?

1. DoubleCheckMD.com makes finding drug-related problems fast and easy. No other product, not even the most sophisticated drug information systems built for hospitals and drug companies, can identify drug-related problems as efficiently. Because DoubleCheckMD.com identifies drug-related problems in a fraction of the time it would take other systems, it is helping people recognize drug side effects that would otherwise have been missed for lack of time. Other products, in contrast, require that people investigate possible drug side effects via reading long lists of side effects for each drug, as well as for each drug combination, in order to do a thorough evaluation. For the person taking five medications, this effort translates into looking up as many as 15 different drug combinations. For someone on 10 drugs, it can mean up to 50 different drug combinations. The "intelligence" built into DoubleCheckMD.com reduces what may have taken one or two hours of reading through long lists to a task that takes only a few minutes.

10. How can DoubleCheckMD.com increase people's understanding of their medical problems, help them find important information and potentially improve their conditions and lives?

1. Without DoubleCheckMD.com, researching drug side effects takes so much time that physicians are often unable to perform this important task, and many drug-related problems are missed. Most people think that drug complications occur when the wrong drug or drug combination is prescribed. In fact, this type of error is not very common. Most drug-related problems happen when the right drug is given, a side effect develops by chance, and the problem is missed long enough for real damage to occur. Identifying and correcting problems early, before they become serious is the best way to prevent most drug complications.
   
   When drug-related side effects are misdiagnosed, patients often go through uncomfortable, time-consuming, scary, and expensive diagnostic evaluations that involve laboratory tests, office visits and procedures. Many times, the investigation only expands to include medications as a possible cause after all other avenues have been fully exhausted. With DoubleCheckMD.com, the medication evaluation can occur earlier in the process and decrease the need for invasive testing.

11. Why is DoubleCheckMD.com a more efficient and complete solution than anything available today?

1. Due to its "intelligent" software, DoubleCheckMD.com is more comprehensive than other technology solution today. Other consumer-oriented drug information products only cover the most common side effects of medications, leaving an information gap. There are over 60,000 drug interactions alone, and each drug interaction includes an average of more than 10 possible side effects. DoubleCheckMD.com is the only tool that enables consumers to execute comprehensive drug evaluations by providing information (previously only accessible to health care professionals) in language that is easy to understand.

12. Why is the drug evaluation process so difficult today?

1. Maintaining a system that covers hundreds of thousands of possible drug side effects is very expensive when done completely by hand. Enhanced Medical Decisions, Inc. has created highly sophisticated software that understands and translates written text automatically.

13. What value does DoubleCheckMD.com deliver to consumers?

1. With its proprietary, first-ever technology, DoubleCheckMD.com brings many advantages to consumers, including clarity, ease of use, time savings and answers to many questions about drug reactions, interactions and side effects. DoubleCheckMD.com transforms what could have been a time-consuming (several hours), confusing and overwhelming process to a matter of minutes, with results that are easy-to-understand. Because of its efficiency, DoubleCheckMD.com will help consumers identify drug-related problems that might otherwise have been missed altogether. DoubleCheckMD.com has already had a positive impact on the small number of individuals who have had access to it. Now that it is in Open Beta, DoubleCheckMD.com is available to all consumers.

14. How does DoubleCheckMD.com help medical practitioners?

1. With over 60,000 drug interactions and an average of approximately 100 side effects per drug, it is humanly impossible for physicians to keep track of all but the most common drug side effects. Like consumers, medical professionals are also in need of a tool that helps them identify drug-related problems efficiently. DoubleCheckMD.com allows physicians to evaluate drug side effects in a fraction of the time that it would take with other products. By identifying drug-related problems earlier in the process, physicians can decrease the number of drug-related complications and improve quality of care. They can also save their patients from needless diagnostic tests and invasive procedures.

15. What value does DoubleCheckMD.com deliver to pharmacists?

1. Pharmacists are often the first people to whom consumers turn when concerned about medication safety or side effects. Like physicians, pharmacists cannot possibly have all drug-related information at their fingertips. At present, pharmacists are only able to provide their customers with long, general laundry lists of only the most common potential side effects. With DoubleCheckMD.com, pharmacists can address consumers' real concerns about problems that they are actually experiencing and can address these questions more thoroughly in a fraction of the time. Via DoubleCheckMD.com, pharmacists can access information with a minimum of effort and provide customers with actionable information specific to the individual customer, rather than general pamphlet-style information in which one size fits all. The pharmacist can even print out the DoubleCheckMD.com evaluation for the consumer to take to his/her physician.

DoubleCheckMD.com Launch Questions & Answers:

16. When will DoubleCheckMD.com launch?

1. DoubleCheckMD.com is launching in multiple stages. After launching a password-required Beta version on September 20, 2007, DoubleCheckMD.com moved into Open Beta (no passwords required) on November 7, 2007. After providing the best user experience possible in the Open Beta phase, DoubleCheckMD.com will move into "Preview" and then to "Final" in 2008. During each phase, DoubleCheckMD.com will collect information from users to help identify any glitches and gather feedback. DoubleCheckMD.com also encourages users to recommend any features they would like to see in future releases.

17. How does one participate in the testing and development of DoubleCheckMD.com?

1. As DoubleCheckMD.com continues to evolve, we welcome your feedback and ideas on how to make it a great experience. DoubleCheckMD.com is committed to empowering consumers and medical professionals and to delivering health information technology (IT) solutions that improve lives. Please feel free to contact us at: Drew@microarts.com.