Need to run a code? There’s an app for that! ACLS Advisor [App Review]

There are few moments in medicine where your immediate actions lead to a direct, life altering result for your patient. Obstructed airways and anaphylactic reactions come to mind, but neither of those occur as often as a code (“code blue”, and I’m not talking about when the cold activated indicator on your beer lets you know it’s ready to drink).

Back in medical school, before we entered the wards 3^rd year, our school made sure we were ACLS certified. I realized how lucky I was that my school taught such a rigorous ACLS course when I was doing an away rotation at another medical school and students were complaining about their lack of ACLS training. Enter the “ACLS Advisor – Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support” App (currently $5.99 in the App Store) from Current Clinical Strategies Publishing.  This review will cover how this well organized and easy to use application walks you though various ACLS algorithms and then some.

When you open the app, you’re greeted by a brief welcome screen followed by a menu to choose the situation you need help with. These include the fundamentals of any ACLS course such as pulseless ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation, pulseless electrical activity (PEA), and symptomatic and asymptomatic tachycardia and bradycardia. Additionally, the application includes extra information outside the scope of ACLS, including treatment algorithms for asthma, stroke, electrolyte abnormalities, and a toxicology section as well as anaphylactic reactions.

One of my biggest pet peeves are applications that lack an intuitive navigation experience. Even if an application has all the information in the world, if the information is difficult to access I won’t end up using it. When you’re running form patient to patient, precious seconds add up, and I don’t want to waste time trying to find my way around an app.

Well, when it comes to navigation, this app hits a home run. Every screen (except for the home menu) has a “back” button at the top left, as well as a “home” button on the top right, so you always know how to get back to where you were. Additionally, the algorithms are very easy to navigate through. Let’s take pulseless V. tach for example. From the home screen, you select the “pulseless arrest, VT, VF” button. After telling you to begin compressions it then asks if the patient is in a shockable rhythm or not. In the heat of the moment, say you suddenly forgot which rhythms are shockable. Again, it walks you though, asking if it’s pulseless VF or VT, or PEA.

Another example, say you don’t remember what ventricular fibrillation looks like. Just click on the link, and it shows you a sample rhythm strip of V. fib. Really, it couldn’t get much easier; this is how an app should be built, and it’s just as straight forward and easy to use for other situations (bradycardia, ACS, asthma, etc).

What would I change?

Not much honestly, if you’ve been reading above, you could have probably guessed my answer. However, I would like the option to adjust the size of the font. This would be especially crucial when I’m reading medication dosages. It would really be helpful to have the ability to zoom in or just increase the size (I would hate to misread a mcg vs and mg, etc). This would be good not only for the regular screens, but also for the algorithm diagrams that are included. Additionally, on every screen, an EKG animation continues to scroll by at the top. I wish I had the option to turn that off. They do give you the ability to turn on or off the “splash screen” that greets you before the main menu pops up, but again, font size and the pesky animation are about it.

What does this app do great?

Again, if you’ve been reading above you’d know my answer already. In fact, I can’t wait to check out some of the other apps this developer already has in the App Store. What I was especially thankful to have in the application was an easy to navigate user interface (including back and home buttons) and I appreciated that they also included diagrams of the actual algorithms (accessible from the bottom left button at the main menu). The app is well polished and doesn’t look like someone just copied an ACLS card and made an app. It shows a plethora of additional information, such as sections on asthma, tox, stroke and peds (yes, a pediatric basic life support section is included because “children are not just little adults!”).

Who would benefit from this app?

Besides the patient coding, anyone that takes care of patients, or anyone at the bedside during a code. This includes physicians, residents, medical students, NPs, PAs, RNs, ANAs, etc. Granted, it’d be hard to use the app while doing compressions, but it never hurts to have as much knowledge at the bedside during critical moments. I’m a minimalist, and I’d much rather have this app on my phone, than to have to search through my white coat pockets to find a wrinkled, folded ACLS card. This application also makes for a great study aid if you’re about to take an ACLS course. Just treat the app like a set of flashcards and quiz yourself.

As always, no application is a replacement for good clinical judgment, however it’s always good to have solid references available during critical times. Especially if you’re a clinician who doesn’t often have to deal with medical codes, this application would make a great asset. I’d buy it again, if it wasn’t already on my iPhone.

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