The Allscripts booth here at the HIMSS event in Chicago has by most estimates drawn the largest crowd for the past few days. Perhaps one reason for the interest is the company's new iPhone application: Allscripts Remote, which enables physicians to access and control an Allscripts Electronic Health Records (EHR) directly from their iPhone. 

Thought Allscripts had already announced an iPhone app for its EHR? We did too. Mobihealthnews reported on it last month: Edge Health Solutions, a start-up based in Richmond, British Columbia recently signed a multi-million dollar deal with AllScripts to embed the company's electronic health record (EHR) into its suite of software applications. The iPhone app would have been marketed as EdgeEHR, but it does not appear in the iPhone App Store yet.

The latest release from Allscripts, however, makes no mention of Edge Health Solutions, and it appears that the two companies now seem to have competing solutions of an iPhone-based EHR.

According to the release, the Allscripts Remote application enables physicians to "safely make critical medical decisions even when they are away from the office, with all relevant information available on the one device they keep closest - their phone." The app is also available for the iPhone's little brother the iPod Touch, which has the same functionality as the iPhone--except the actual phone. The new applications works with both the Allscripts Enterprise and Professional Electronic Health Records.

The application's capabilities include access to real-time patient summary information, communication to local hospital emergency rooms, ePrescribing, and real-time access to other information, including medical history, lab results and medications.

"Physicians are quick to adopt technology that delivers clear benefits to their patients while making their own lives easier, and Allscripts Remote delivers on both counts," Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts stated in the company's press release. "For any physician who uses iPhone or plans to, there's no better way to connect to real-time information and new capabilities that not only make it easier for them to make informed clinical decisions, but save them time. It's all about connecting."

I thought this other quote, which was unattributed, was also very interesting: "Just as the Blackberry was designed to maximize email access, so Allscripts remote takes advantage of iPhone graphical capabilities to provide fast, easy access to the Electronic Health Record."

Read more from the press release here.