PEPID LLC, a developer of Palm OS medical reference software, has signed a licensing agreement with Harvard Medical School and the CareGroup Healthcare System.

The agreement allows all medical students, faculty and staff at Harvard and its affiliated hospitals to use PEPID ED (Emergency Doctor), PEPID MD (Medical Doctor), PEPID RN (Registered Nurse), PEPID MSC (Medical Student Companion), and PEPID PDC (Portable Drug Companion) products for a period of one year. PEPID stands for "Portable Emergency Physician Information Database."

John Halamka, M.D., CareGroup's CIO, said, "The medical students have experience using this software. Our entire clinical staff is looking forward to having this PDA-based resource available to them in the classroom and at the bedside."

Serving one million patients each year, the Harvard-affiliated CareGroup Healthcare System employs 12,000 staff members, which includes 3,000 physicians and 2000 nurses. Harvard Medical School has a faculty of nearly 8,000 and has an enrollment of 650 men and women in the MD program; 477 students in the PhD program; and 132 in the joint MD-PhD programs, part of which is sponsored in collaboration with MIT.

According to PEPID, its medical professional programs were initiated in 1994 when a team of 35 medical and pharmaceutical professionals came together and created the first version of PEPID , now called PEPID ED. The company said PEPID ED was designed to assist in the reduction of medical errors and improve patient outcomes.