Purpose of App Review
- To assess an open access, current awareness app for on-the-go access to scholarly articles.
Introduction
The PLoS ONE app for Android acts as a quick access point to recently published articles within an area of interest.
Users can view a general list of recently added PLoS articles or refine the list of references by looking within designated topics. There are more than two dozen content areas that users can focus on (listed later), making it an app that should be of interest to clinicians from any background.
(read more)
One large gripe in the hospital setting is the speed of medication verification by pharmacists prior to dispensing to the floor.
Often, one large barrier is the volume of orders that pour into the pharmacy after a medical team finishes their rounds.
Inevitably, questions arise and phone calls are made to prescribers to confirm some variable that may delay verification of a medication that others are awaiting to give.
As such, some hospitals place pharmacists on the floors to partner with a team to gain further insight into orders and reduce this communication lag.
However, with the rise of mobile technology, can a mobile device reduce the time of pharmacy verification over standard stationary computer terminals? For me, this is a great question. During my residency, I heavily used my iPad during rounds to answer questions and help with order entry on the go, especially with STAT medications, but I never considered if this helped increase my workflow.
(read more)
Purpose of App Review
- To assess the app’s claim that it allows you to check the baby’s heart rate pattern
- To evaluate the baby heart monitor portion of the app
- To evaluate the package of calculators purchased with the app
Introduction
There is something magical about a baby’s heartbeat; I never get tired of listening to it.
I love watching my patients’ faces light up in excitement or ease in relief at the sound of the fetal heart beat. On a labor and delivery floor we, as practitioners, watch them incessantly.
Can an app allow you to listen or watch a baby’s heart rate in the comfort of your home? The Baby Heart Rate Monitor and Pregnancy Calculators app, at first look of the title, seems to indicate that this is possible.
So is this a patient-centered app? No. Proving that the devil is in the details with this app’s description, the app does not claim and does not provide this ability.
Instead, the Baby Heart Rate Monitor and Pregnancy Calculators app , version 2013.2, aims to provide a fetal heart rate interpretation scheme according to a “newly” proposed 5-tier system. The app also provides other pregnancy-related calculators.
Of note, while in the process of publishing this review, versions 2013.3 (3/7/13) and 2013.4 (3/11/13) have been released that do allow for listening and recording of the fetal heart rate (read more)
Our metabolism is at the center of our health and well-being, though it goes largely under-appreciated in the grand scheme of things in favor of an emphasis on exercise as the primary calorie burner. For most individuals, 70-80 percent of the calories we burn come from metabolism, not exercise. However, each of us has a unique metabolic rate due to the subtle variations in our relative activity levels, diet, and physiological characteristics.
Breezing, a startup spun out of Arizona State University, has developed a hand-held metabolism tracker which connects to a users smartphone or tablet. The device, also called Breezing, uses indirect calorimetry to measure your resting energy expenditure, your energy source (fat or carbohydrates), and allows you to track these parameters over time.
(read more)
By Jeremy Webb MD
In the last several years, there has been a big push to deliver easily accessible, clinically pertinent information to interns, residents, and graduates of Emergency Medicine (EM) programs around the world.
It is not unique to EM.
After spending the last 3 years of my residency scouring the net for supplemental educational resources, I’ve learned our specialty takes top prize when it comes to both the quality and sheer quantity of social media and web-based learning sites. We live in amazing times. (read more)
Follow Iltifat Husain MD on twitter @iltifatMD
The following is our weekly list of the notable iPhone medical apps released during the past week, week 12. For each app I have added some comments and alternative apps you might consider.
The key thing to note is these are not all of the medical apps released in the past week. Rather, these are the medical apps that stood out to me as having potential use for medical professionals. There are some great medical apps here and many are free. (read more)
Purpose of App Review
On this article we intend to explore the usefulness of the Pocket Lab Values Android app.
We will try to answer the questions:
- Is the information present sound?
- Should physicians have this app installed on their Android smartphones?
Introduction
The amount of laboratory test studies laid out at a physician’s disposal is vast and ever expanding. As remembering the physiological levels of Creatinine and other values can often mean the difference between life and death for a patient, proper interpretation of test results becomes of the utmost importance.
Pocket Lab Values is a lab reference app developed by Joefrey Kibuule (currently a medical student) that attempts to aid healthcare professionals by providing reference values to common tests.
iMedicalApps has already done an app review for a previous iOS version of this app which can be found here. (read more)
Purpose of App Review
Investigating a Google Scholar app for the Android platform.
Introduction
Google Scholar, as a comprehensive database of scholarly citation information, is becoming more of a go-to resource for physicians and medical professionals seeking information on any given topic (whether it be research or clinical).
With Google’s powerful algorithm, Google Scholar has the ability to retrieve many highly relevant sources along with some off-the-mark references. In the ever-changing world of mobile access to information, Scholar Droid has developed a sufficient and effective interface for searching the ocean of medical literature available in the Google Scholar knowledge base.
Purpose of App Review
- to review the usability and features of the Fetal Biometry app
- to review the clinical applicability of the calculations of the Fetal Biometry app
- to explore whether this app would be useful in a resource-limited setting
Introduction
A few of my previous reviews (Top 10 Pregnancy Wheels, Fetal Weight app) have pined for a true fetal biometry app. As an obstetrician, fetal biometry (fetal body measurements) can form an important part of patient management. Formal ultrasounds, attached to nifty software programs, take the technician’s measurements and make the little centimeter more clinically meaningful.
Sometimes, though, you do not have a nice machine with a nice package and you are the unofficial tech and you need to make a management decision now. The Fetal Biometry app aims to provide meaning to those numbers on the go.
(read more)
Purpose of App Review
To review a translation app for communicating with non-English speaking patients.
Introduction
Sometimes important information needs to be received and understood between professionals and patients.
Emergency Medical Spanish Guide Lite (EMSG) is an app for communicating vital and emergency health information between non-Spanish speaking healthcare professionals and non-English speaking patients.
EMSG serves to bridge the gap between Spanish language patients and their healthcare providers during emergency situations.
Complete with audio accompaniment and written phrases, this app help to improve communication when it comes to Spanish language barriers.
(read more)
Purpose of App Review
- To assess how utility of this app for teaching children and teenagers about asthma.
Introduction
Kids Beating Asthma was created by Pediatric Services at Hospital Universitario San Carlos (HCSC) de Madrid (Spain).
It was designed to help children under 12 years old as well as teenagers with asthma learn about their condition. The app was made to teach children what asthma is and how to live with it – in an interactive and fun way.
(read more)
A week after Google Reader is discontinued, a new service from Google is announced.
Their new product is called ‘Google Keep,’ a note-taking app.
The big features of Google Keep is the ability to create on the go notes, lists, and audio notes.
There is also the ability to add photos to notes.
These photos and notes can be modify their colors as an organization tool. The power behind Google Keep is its integration into Google Drive, and thus support with cloud based software. (read more)
Integration of mobile devices increase medication verification by pharmacists
One large gripe in the hospital setting is the speed of medication verification by pharmacists prior to dispensing to the floor.
Often, one large barrier is the volume of orders that pour into the pharmacy after a medical team finishes their rounds.
Inevitably, questions arise and phone calls are made to prescribers to confirm some variable that may delay verification of a medication that others are awaiting to give.
As such, some hospitals place pharmacists on the floors to partner with a team to gain further insight into orders and reduce this communication lag.
However, with the rise of mobile technology, can a mobile device reduce the time of pharmacy verification over standard stationary computer terminals? For me, this is a great question. During my residency, I heavily used my iPad during rounds to answer questions and help with order entry on the go, especially with STAT medications, but I never considered if this helped increase my workflow.
(read more)