Education Research Laboratories, Inc. Announces Agreement with Apple Computers
FORT WORTH, Texas — July 26, 1994 — Fort Worth-based Education Research Laboratories, Inc. (ERLI), a developer of interactive electronic reference software, announced today with Apple Computer, Inc.'s Personal Interactive Electronics division, the development and distribution of ERLI's medical reference series, developed specifically for Apple's Newton technology, according to Robert Stone, president and CEO of Education Research Laboratories, Inc.
"Apple's Newton technology gives us an added dimension in developing and applying our reference system," Stone said.
Ted Briscoe, director, U.S. Sales & Marketing for Apple's Personal Interactive Electronics said, "our partnership with an innovative company such as ERLI and their resulting medical referencing system exemplifies not only the breadth but also the caliber of solutions capable using Newton technology."
"We have taken the basic artificial intelligence principals of knowledge engineering and expanded and enhanced them to create a unique system that will meet or exceed physicians' needs," Stone said. "My guess is that electronic medical references will become as common as the stethoscope."
Titles currently available from ERLI include W.W. Norton's Little Black Book of Primary Care Pearls and References by Dan Onion, M.D., and the best-selling pocket medical reference series Current Clinical Strategies. ERLI is negotiating with several other medical reference publishers to develop additional titles.
The references will be available in September through Login Brothers and J.A. Majors, Co., the two largest medical book suppliers in the United States.
"We know how doctors reference information, and we know how they intend to use that information," Stone said. "Our response was to create a system that replicates and anticipates the doctors' use and application of medical reference materials."
The electronic reference industry is currently dominated by companies which merely transform books and references into electronic versions without regard to content. That is not the case with ERLI.
"Unlike other developers, we focus on structuring the content of the references," Stone said. "We provide physicians with a cognitively sound and intuitive referencing system."
ERLI's Professional Electronic References give physicians immediate access to volumes of medical reference materials with the touch of a pen on a hand-held computer like Apple's Newton.
ERLI's Stone is an instructor and researcher at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth. His associate, Frank J. Papa, D.O., Ph.D., is a board certified emergency medicine physician, full professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center and president of ERLI's non-profit sister corporation Education Research, Inc.
CONTACT:
Michael Patterson, Read-Poland Associates, 214-760-6066 or Robert Stone, Education Research Laboratories, Inc., 817-732-2704