The challenge of identifying and absorbing relevant medical literature will not abate anytime soon and the proliferation of services that purport to simplify or eliminate this problem for physicians is itself now becoming a distraction. The rapid adoption of web-enabled smart phones by physicians, such as the iPhone, is driving this dilemma from the theoretical realm directly to the bedside. The hope is that if relevant medical literature is immediately available at the point of care, physicians would be more inclined to use it.

At the same time, the mantra of practicing medicine that is evidence-based is ringing ever louder. Thus far, it seems to this reviewer that most physicians apply it most strenuously when criticizing other physicians’ decisions rather than applying it to their own practice. Nevertheless, large well-respected compilations like the Cochrane Abstracts are available and widely used.  They offer well constructed summaries of evidence-based diagnostic and treatment guidelines for thousands of pathologies.  It is into this nexus that the “Evidence Central” app enters.  This review will cover the features of this recently released medical application, which is technically “free” in the App Store, but requires a paid subscription of $79.95 in order to actually use.

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Last week we did a feature review of the iRadiology App, a recently released free radiology learning tool.  I thought it was a must have medical application for medical students and residents.  The application provides over 500 radiology cases explained in detail.  I had a quick Q&A with Dr. Lieberman to discuss the direction of this great learning tool and whether or not it will remain free. 

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MedPage Today’s motto is, “Putting Breaking Medical News Into Practice”.  I’ve been a fan of the website, medpagetoday.com for a few years now because they provide great medical commentary in a short, concise manner.  I call it “high-yield” reading.  Their articles often highlight key papers from the New England Journal or other reputed journals.  Another reason I’m a fan is because of their partnership with the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine to provide Continuing Medical Education(CME).  A partnership with a well respected academic institution definitely gives me greater respect for their articles.

All the content from their website has now been brought to the iPhone platform, and the app is free!  Although the application was released awhile back, it was recently updated with some nice additions.  In this review of the MedPage Today Mobile App I’ll cover how to best utilize the features this free application provides.

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Merry Christmas everyone! The iMedical Apps Team has been busy with holiday traveling and festivities, so our apologies on the infrequent updates this past week.  In the Christmas spirit, we’re giving away 10 promo codes each for two USMLE study apps.

Continue on for promo codes for these USMLE study apps.

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The Wall Street Journal has a great article mentioning most of the current mobile electronic personal health records for the iPhone and how they are being used. The article talks about the usefulness of these mobile records and also tells of some of their pitfalls.

One of the biggest pitfalls mentioned is how users have to input their own medical data manually.  Currently some insurance companies and hospitals offer tethered systems, where they will automatically update your personal health records.  Once this becomes more common there should be a greater usage of these mobile platforms.  Although they are improving, these tethered systems often do not communicate well with each other.  This is a topic we’ll discuss on this site in the future since it’s a personal interest of mine.

Polka, TheCarrot.com and Ringful are among a number of new services that allow consumers to input their medical information and track their conditions using a smart phone. Particularly for the small but growing number of people who use electronic health records, phone applications are appealing because they can allow mobile access to personal information.

The market is nascent, however. Currently, only about 3% of U.S. consumers put their medical information online in personal-health records, according to Forrester Research. It’s mainly up to consumers to accurately log their own health data…..

…..With AllOne Health’s application called AllOne Mobile, users can view their medial history on the go, see prescription history and pharmacy information and receive alerts on medical appointments. It gives mobile access to existing personal-health records maintained by participating health plans and for users of Microsoft’s HealthVault program. But right now the application is view-only; users can make changes to their health records using the health plans’ Web interfaces, but not directly from the phone. (The company says it plans on adding this feature next year.)