Doctor becomes inventor iPhone app aims to reduce risk of prescription errors

Dr. Larry Wolk of Voorhees has developed a smartphone app designed to eliminate the risk of medication errors when a doctor phones in a prescription to a hospital.The new app, called “eAttending,” does away altogether with verbal medication orders that doctors give nurses via the telephone. Instead, the doctor uses the app to type a prescription into an iPhone. The medication order, along with the doctor’s electronic signature, goes to the fax machine at the hospital, nursing home or other health care facility, which then prints out the order.

“The doctor types in a faxed order that is dated, timed and signed — so there is no question” about exactly what the doctor ordered, Wolk said.

While verbal telephone orders don’t often lead to medication errors, Wolk said the potential risk has led some health care facilities to prohibit telephone medication orders, except in the case of an emergency.

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Wolk, who practices family medicine in Philadelphia, said a hospital in Philadelphia began piloting the eAttending app in May, and he’s talking with a nursing home in New Jersey that is interested in giving in a try. And he said eAttending is being used by about 20 health care facilities around the country.

Over more than three decades of practicing medicine, Wolk has seen firsthand the need for a more reliable way to communicate medication orders when one of his patients is in a hospital or nursing facility. Basically, the doctor had two options: phone in the order and run the risk of being misunderstood, or go to the hospital or nursing facility and write out a medication order in person.

Wolk came up with the concept for eAttending several years ago.

“I thought for sure that this was so important that someone else would develop it,” he said. “I waited and nobody else came along with it, so I decided to take the risk and invest the funds to develop the technology.”

It took about a year and half to develop the iPhone app, and Wolk said once it catches on he will introduce an Android version.  

Wolk launched a new company, DocThreads LLC, to develop and market the app, which is in its early stages and not yet making a profit. This fall, Wolk will introduce eAttending to doctors and hospitals via medical journals and the Internet.

The inspiration for his invention was his own personal experience as a physician — and today Wolk is a regular eAttending user: “I use the app about eight times a day” to prescribe or change medications for his patients when they’re in a hospital or nursing facility, he said.

Making sure medication errors don’t occur “is very important, and I believe once the app gets more widespread, it will be accepted,” Wolk said. He’s optimistic that eventually eAttending will become “the standard of care for hospitals.”

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