HUDSON, Mass. - June, 2003 - Skyscape, has announced a strategic partnership with Pearson Prentice Hall, a business of Pearson Education, to bring a first wave of nearly 50 award-winning medical and nursing references to the handheld platform. This will significantly expand the number of trusted medical and nursing references available to physicians, nurses and EMTs on PDAs and will provide access to critical information, in context, at the point of care.

In the initial stages of this eight-year strategic partnership, Pearson Prentice Hall and Skyscape will work to provide medical practitioners around the world with a comprehensive PDA knowledge base to consult in order to make informed medical decisions. Skyscape will introduce some of the most popular Pearson Prentice Hall titles such as Photoguide for Nursing Skills; Prentice Hall Nursing Drug Guide 2003; Drug Guide for Paramedics; Pocket Reference for EMT-B First Responder; Hogan Series/Prentice Hall Reviews and Rationales in Nursing.

“Emergency responders, including physicians, nurses EMTs, often point contact patients they need information immediately address time-critical situations”, says Michael McDermott, vice president of new business development, Pearson Prentice Hall. “PDAs have proven invaluable as tools to best prepare these medical professionals. In this first wave with Skyscape, we are taking essential next step in broadening our markets and capitalizing on the capabilities offered by Skyscape’s handheld platform.”

Research has shown that the ability to capture and retrieve information at the point of care can decrease the time it takes to deliver care in half and can significantly reduce errors in prescriptions and other areas. Through its patented smARTlink™ technology, Skyscape brings critical information to more than 190,000 medical professionals in a context they can use—reducing the time medical professionals need to spend consulting information and enabling rapid access to the latest disease, drug and drug interaction information.

“Skyscape looks forward to working with Pearson Prentice Hall to bring their trusted content throughout the enterprise,” said RJ Mathew, vice president marketing and business development for Skyscape. “Together, Skyscape and Pearson Prentice Hall will equip the nation’s medical personnel to be ready to handle any front-line situation with references such as Weapons of Mass Destruction: Emergency Care, Terrorism Response and Communicable Diseases and Infection Control.”

Skyscape will give medical practitioners access to nearly 50 of the most popular Pearson Prentice Hall references over the next year, including:

- Weapons of Mass Destruction: Emergency Care
- Terrorism Response: A Field Guide for Fire and EMS Organizations
- Pocket References for EMTs and Paramedics
- Drug Dosage Calculations for the Emergency Care Provider
- Communicable Diseases and Infection Control

These particular references explain how to deal with injuries that may occur from weapons of mass destruction and are written in a way in which the medical responder can get as much information as quickly as possible in an emergency situation.

"Most people I work with treat their handheld computer as if it was their wallet. Recently, I had the opportunity to practice my nursing skills during a mock terrorist exercise," states Sherman T. Anderson, Capt, USAF, NC. "The ability to reference data relating to all of the possible bio-terror analogies that were thrown at us helped me to feel very confident with my decisions. In making the decisions, it was good to know that I could verify all of it in writing, that the decisions were not just knee-jerk reactions to a situation, but the decision was made after verifying on my handheld that the all of the information was 100% correct."

"As a new PDA user, I am now only finding out the limitless, portable capacity of my PDA texts and references. I have been using Skyscape references throughout my training and have found them to be invaluable in giving me immediate access to the information I need during my daily rounds," states Gary A. Goodman, MD - Doctor of Internal Medicine, Mineola, NY. “I have always found the Pearson Prentice Hall references to be extremely valuable sources (particularly the A. D. A. M. series) of information during my medical education and look forward to being able to access them on my Palm, and seeing them smARTlinked to the other references I use."