Doximity, a new health technology company from the founders of Epocrates, has launched a physician network platform that links medical professionals via their iPhone, Android device or computer to collaborate on patient treatment or find appropriate experts.

According to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, communication breakdowns between care providers are the root cause of 65 percent of serious medical errors. Doximity aims to address these communication challenges with what officials are touting as the first online community for medical professionals to engage in fast, secure and HIPAA-compliant communications.

[See also: Report: Social networking can improve care, lower costs.]

The Doximity community, which numbers more than 7,000 U.S. physicians, was founded in October by Jeff Tangney, the co-founder and former president & COO of Epocrates. InterWest Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, is the lead backer of Doximity.

The app, which is free, allows members to:

• Find fax, phone number, insurance info, clinical interests,
and languages spoken for over 567,000 U.S. physicians
• Exchange private phone lists, back lines, pagers and send
HIPAA-compliant messages to colleagues (all physicians are verified via three-step credential check)
• Connect with former classmates and residents
• Access phone numbers for 24-hour pharmacies, 
hospitals and labs

"Our teenagers today have better communications technology than our doctors," said Tangney, who serves as Doximity's CEO. "Since e-mail and SMS are not secure, most doctors and their office staffs are forced to fax or page each other. Doximity is designed to make secure, cross-organizational, medical-grade group messaging easy."

[See also: Kalorama: Medical mobile app market worth $84.1M.]

Doximity pre-populates its national directory with practice information from the National Provider Identifier, Medicare, and other HHS databases.