Author Archive
Cardiothoracic surgeon develops app to predict risk of heart surgery
Dr. Edward Bender of Missouri has released five iPhone apps, all designed to assist patients and surgeons contemplating cardiac and thoracic procedures. His newest iPhone app, CTSNetWiki, gathers data from all the major cardiothoracic societies to allow patients and doctors to compute the risk of various heart surgeries.
In this interview with the South East Missourian, Dr. Bender remarked
If I’m talking to a patient and they want to know their chances of [surgical] complications, I can just whip this out and tell you how your case compares to the other four million in the database.
Dr. Bender said he’s working on a grant application to help with funding and to expand the business. While many app developers seek clinicians to help identify worthwhile clinical projects, there is a unique advantage to a physician who can play both roles. We look forward to seeing what Dr. Bender dreams of next. [St. Louis Business Journal]
Frog Dissection lets you see the insides of a frog while keeping your iPad clean
We could not miss the chance to highlight the first (we believe) animal dissection app for the iPad. Frog Dissection by Punflay shows you, in about a dozen quick steps, how to open up the abdomen and chest of a frog and see what the various organs are.
The app has already garnered the PETA Mark Twain Ethical Science award. We are not sure if this will start a new venue of competition among medical app developers but it certainly shows off the different ways in which medical education and a tablet device could converge.
MedWaitTime iPhone application lets patients know if their doctor is running late
MedWaitTime is an interesting application that allows subscribing doctors and emergency rooms/urgent care centers post their schedule availability online. Patients can download the free application and enter their appointment time and their doctor’s name. The doctor’s office updates their status as necessary, or if they are available for walk-ins. The service appears to be supported by subscription fees to physicians of $50/month or $300/month for facilities.
This is part of a trend of real-time communication between patients and care-providers to help all of us avoid spending time in that most dreaded of places – the doctor’s waiting room. Another interesting service in the same vertical is ZocDoc (reviewed on this site) which is rapidly growing by combining physician rating with on-line scheduling for patients.
Epocrates files for $75 million IPO
Epocrates, which is planning on launching a mobile electronic health record (discussed on this site here) is planning a $75m initial public offer in a bid to be a publicly traded company. The company generated net sales of $24.3m last quarter, down slightly over last year.
Epocrates is one of the oldest and successful mobile medical software application developers and this IPO is a sign of the maturation and strength of this sector. [MassDevice]
Doctors use iPhone, iPad to provide treatments at a Japan hospital
Jikei University Hospital in Japan has launched an iPhone application designed to assist diagnosing stroke symptoms in patients. The system sends CT images of brain aneurysm patients to doctors’ iPhones so decisions for surgery can be made quickly. The hospital is partnering with Fujifilm Corp. to develop similar systems for other hospitals. [Daily Yomiuri Online]
Other doctors use their iPhones when making house calls, remotely accessing patients’ medical records database and sending patient photos back for inclusion into their records.
“Surprisingly, compared with other professionals, medical practitioners lag in their use of IT tools.”
Prof. Hiroshi Mizushima, a medical informatics expert at Tokyo Medical and Dental University was quoted as saying.
Verizon enters health information technology with cloud based information exchange
Verizon is planning a cloud based services for clinical providers to securely exchange health information. Features will include a clinical dashboard, record locator service, cross-enterprise patient index and clinical messaging.
GigaOm makes the point:
… by delivering what is essentially medical records as a service for hospitals and physicians, Verizon is not only trying to get a chunk of federal money, but also trying to provide the type of cloud service that will fill up its networks.
Top Doc iPhone app features medical images and quizzes to let medical students & residents improve their visual diagnosis
Developed jointly by Elsevier and Legacy Interactive, this app features quizzes with more than 600 questions for levels ranging from novice to expert. Users try to determine the correct diagnosis by viewing actual photographs depicting a condition or abnormality on the body [MinOnline.com].
A representative from Legacy Interactive noted:
“Given the cost of developing iPhone apps, and the early state of the industry, Top Doc can be considered an experiment—a relatively low risk way to gather information about the potential business opportunity, models, and market.”
Medical school has a well deserved reputation for requiring hours of mindless memorizing. An approach to learning that blends in fun and gaming could well stand out among the proliferation of educational apps on smartphones.
Texting being used to help inner city diabetic population manage blood sugars
A few early studies show that compliance is improved when text messages are used to remind patients to take their medications or monitor their health status.
There has been growing popularity with using text messaging in order to increase medication compliance, but whats notable about this study is it’s focusing on the underserved population – the population set to benefit the most from this service.
“I call it medical minutes,” says Dr. Richard Katz of George Washington University Hospital in the nation’s capital.
He’s testing whether inner-city diabetics, an especially hard-to-treat population, might better control their blood sugar — and thus save Medicaid dollars — by tracking their disease using Internet-connected cell phones, provided with reduced monthly rates as long as they regularly comply.
Link[Associated Press]
Agamatrix glucose meter may get FDA approval for direct iPhone connection
Agamatrix believes that its WaveSense Jazz meter could become the first medical device to connect directly to Apple’s iOS platform, which includes iPad. FDA 510k approval is pending.
Agamatrix told DiabetesMine that the cable will go on sale at “Apple standard pricing” of about $25 to $30 as soon as it garners FDA approval.
“We’ve been working with Apple for the last two years to make this happen. We’re very excited,” Agamatrix’s Strategic Marketing Manager Joe Flaherty told DiabetesMine.
Check out our feature of another company that is hoping to make a splash in the healthcare community with their medical grade bluetooth barcode scanner.
link [mobihealthnews]
Notable App Releases 7/8/10
iPharmacy Professional by SigmaPhone LLC is released
It provides FDA prescribing information for 7000 drugs and medications and works offline. Both iPhone and Android versions are available. It is a paid app with an introductory price of $0.99 at this time.
iPad app Panic Attack TalkDown HD claims it can talk you out of a panic attack
Claimed to be the the work of anxiety expert Charles Linden, the app shows a series of video clips – with Mr. Linden himself.
Medical App News 7/8/10
Cisco announces Cius tablet, potential competitor for the iPad in healthcare
The Cius is a 7-in., 1.15 lbs. tablet powered by an Intel Atom processor and Google’s Android OS version 2.2. Computerworld compares how the Cius may be attractive to hospital CIO’s.
Microsoft Aims To Alleviate Health IT Cloud Concerns
Healthcare providers still have many reservations about the security of cloud computing for electronic medical records and mission-critical apps.[Infoworld]
