Don't be surprised if the next time you see your doctor, in addition to having a stethoscope around her neck, she has a handheld in her hand.

A number of different companies offer mobile medical solutions that allow physicians and other healthcare professionals to carry reams of drug and disease information with them on a Pocket PC or Palm-based PDA or smartphone. Some systems even allow doctors to write prescriptions as well as order tests from a mobile device.

One company that mobilizes medical practices is PatientKeeper. With PatientKeeper, doctors' offices can integrate existing information systems into a platform that allows physicians to interactively manage patient data, view clinical results, enter charges, dictate notes, write prescriptions, and more from a handheld.

An essential tool in PatientKeeper is its reference library, which delivers access to medical texts in the context of a specific patient's situation. To enhance this library, the company recently announced partnerships with two of the largest suppliers of mobile medical references, Skyscape and ePocrates—greatly increasing the number of references at a doctor's disposal.

As a result, doctors will better be able to search drug databases directly from a patient's active medication list and choose an appropriate discharge medication. They can also now look up a table of differential diagnoses in one of Skyscape 225 medical references, such as Griffith's Five-Minute Clinical Consult, and add it to a patient's active problem list.

For its part, ePocrates is the most widely deployed mobile medical reference solution with more than 350,000 healthcare professionals subscribing to its handheld application and drug references, including 20 percent of practicing U.S. physicians.

PatientKeeper CEO, Paul W. Brient, noted "The amount of drug reference information that physicians must keep track of continues to grow at an impressive rate. Our partnership with ePocrates is important because of its popularity with physicians. ePocrates provides one of the most respected and trusted drug references available."