Clinical Decision Making
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.
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 3rd 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.
The Merck Manual Professional Edition Medical App is the First Encyclopedia of Medicine that Fits in Your Pocket [App Review]
The Merck manual is a venerable encyclopedia of medicine that, over the last century, has passed through eighteen editions and attained the generous girth of over 3000 pages. It has such a breadth of scope that, if similar a book were proposed to a publisher today, it would be quickly dismissed as unrealistically ambitious and lacking a clear audience.
However, by encompassing so many clinical and related topics and by virtue of its consistent, tightly honed writing style, it has paradoxically become useful to a large range of readers, including doctors, lawyers and, more recently with its home edition, to lay readers.
Seeking to expand the audience even further, the publishers have now produced an iPhone version of this textbook, which this review will cover.
MD on Call App Hopes to Make Your Call Nights Less Painful [App Review]
Its 3 AM and you are the new intern on call covering far more than your share of patients for multiple services. Your pager goes off. Mrs. Smith is seizing and Mr. Jones is vomiting large amounts of blood and is hypokalemic. What do you do?
MD on Call ($5.99) hopes to provide these answers. The app is developed by MDMarkee Publishing and is a new addition to the App Store. It is a simple application with sometimes basic but vital information, especially useful at those early morning call hours. This review will focus on the information provided and my experience using this application while being on call.
eRoentgen App Helps Physicians Choose Appropriate Imagine Studies [App Review]
Update: In response to iMedicalApps editorial and reader feedback, the folks at Iatros Software have lowered the price of this app to $19.99. They have also given us a few promo codes for our readers. Check out the comments section for the codes!
Advances in imaging technologies and skilled radiologists now allow for routine diagnosis of many previously mysterious disorders. Listening for obscure heart sounds and subtle neurological exams still hold a cherished position in medical education but, as one old saying goes, you can replace a whole room of neurologists with an MRI machine.
However, such aphorisms not only raise the ire of card carrying neurologists but ignore the basic problem of knowing which imaging test to order. Many a diagnosis has been delayed or missed in a patient who had a “negative” MRI – the problem was that the MRI was of the wrong body part.
So, what do you do if you are a busy primary care practitioner and a patient presents with, say, hydronephrosis or neck pain or urinary incontinence? There are so many imaging modalities, it is difficult to avoid ordering the wrong or unnecessary test. It is this important problem the eRoentgen applicaton by iAtros software is trying to address. In this review we’ll see if this iPhone medical app is worth the high asking price of $49.99.
Clinical ORthopaedic Exam App (CORE): Portable Physical Diagnosis on the iPhone [App Review]
This App recently received a significant update, including a number of suggestions made by the iMedicalApps team and readers. These changes include the ability to email links of useful videos and PubMed links, a “search” feature, and the ability to save particular entries to a “favorites” list.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of orthopedic surgery is the role of physical examination in diagnosis. The patient may tell you their knee (or hip, shoulder, etc) hurts “sometimes”, and if you’re lucky, they might tell you under what conditions. Your job is figure out which of that joint’s particular ligaments, labrum or tendon is injured.
Luckily, for almost every musculoskeletal ailment, there is a specific physical maneuver to discover the underlying problem. Often, there are several maneuvers for each problem. And, therein lies the problem: How do you remember the specifics of each maneuver, its indications, and the positive and negative findings when its been months or more since the last time you used the maneuver?
Diagnosaurus DDx (1.3) [App Review]
Diagnosaurus is an app that you might be familiar with if your hospital / medical school uses Access Medicine. It’s on the homepage the Access Medicine portal.
Diagnosaurus helps you form a differential diagnosis (it helps you come up with a list of possible diseases or causes based on vague to specific symptoms). This is key to note, because I found many people reviewing this app in the app store complaining that it doesn’t help you make a diagnosis. That is not the purpose of this app. It only helps you “start” the process of formulating a differential. In this review we’ll discuss how to use this application.
