Archive for December, 2009
Evidence Central App – Evidence Based Medicine Guidelines Instantly Available in Mobile Form [App Review]
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.
Interview with Dr. Lieberman, creator of the iRadiology App
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.
MedPage Today Mobile App Puts Breaking Medical News in the Palm of Your Hand [App Review]
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.
App Giveaway – USMLE Q-bank and USMLE Flashcards App
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.
Review of Electronic Personal Health Records
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.)
iRadiology App Provides Massive Amounts of Radiology Content, and its Free [App Review]
A new radiology learning tool was just released in the App Store, the iRadiology App. This app has a catalog of over 500 radiology cases designed to help medical students and residents improve their plain film,CT, and MRI reading skills. The cases are derived from Dr. Gillian Lieberman, who is the currently Director of Harvard Medical Student training and Associate Director of the Residency Program at Beth Israel Medical Center. This legitimizes the content of the application. In this review we’ll discuss the application further and also show you how to turn on the “Zoom” feature built into the iPhone that will enable you to improve the utility of this medical app.
Optimizing Your Medical Practice Experience with the iPod Touch
To our readers:
We will be providing commentary and short reviews to medpagetoday.com two or three times a month. We feel honored to be included in their short list of talented and well respected bloggers. The following is a little clip from our first post titled, Optimizing Your Medical Practice Experience with the iPod Touch. Rest assured, we’ll keep the frequency of our posts and reviews the same on our site.
There has been a great deal of commentary profiling medical applications that are useful for healthcare providers. However, there hasn’t been much talk about how mobile medical applications can enhance the doctor-patient experience and in turn, help optimize your practice’s overall experience. In future posts, we’ll focus more on applications for medical providers, but this post will discuss applications centered around the physician-patient relationship.
We all know how busy clinic can be, and this leads to increased waiting times for patients. Understandably, patients often complain that this is the most frustrating time for them, and none of us likes walking in excessively late on an angry patient because we had to deal with another patient’s medical emergency. So how can this downtime be made more bearable and productive at the same time?
Here is where the iPod Touch comes in. It runs basically the same operating system as the iPhone, and the applications I’ll discuss work for both devices.
During a patient’s waiting time in the waiting room or exam room, you could give them an iPod Touch with some of the following applications pre-loaded.
FDA Drugs App Provides a Mobile Interface to FDA Drug Approval Data [App Review]
FDA Drugs is an iPhone application that functions as a mobile drug database. The user selects a drug and the application exposes brand and generic equivalent drug information, with the added twist of being able to display the actual FDA approval document.
The name is unfortunate as it implies that the application was developed by the FDA, which it is not. Rather, the developers draw on publicly available FDA data stores to display the label information for thousands of FDA approved prescription and over-the-counter drugs. When the label information is not stored inside the application, it displays a NIH website (“Daily Med”) where the user can search for FDA label information.
Apple Patents Show Interest in Mobile Vital Sign Monitoring Systems
We’re currently still waiting to see when Apple will attempt to directly link its mobile devices to possible health care monitoring devices. Although AirStip OB provides some sort of monitoring system, its still not an example of a completely mobile one. This might be changing with Apple’s increasing interest in the fitness arena, especially in regards to it’s partnership with Nike. According to Apple Insider, a iPod nano-compatible heart rate monitor is already on the way.
Mobihealthnews actually had this great find when looking at patents uncovered by Apple Insider. These patents are for other vital sign monitoring, not just heart rate. Pulse Ox and temp appear to be the other two vital sign monitoring they are investigating. This type of monitoring system could definitely be useful in a mobile setting when providing long term care for chronic conditions. A system that can check your pulse ox, HR, and temp, and then log the results to be viewed later in an easy to read format could be useful for patients suffering chronic conditions, such as COPD and certain arrhythmias.
At the end of the day though, I’m still holding out hope for the iPhone – blue tooth stethoscope connection. Imagine patients being able to place a stethoscope in the correct orientation on their body, record the sound on their iPhone, and then upload it to their doc. Now THAT is what I’d call mobile health care monitoring.
