By Jason Paluzzi, MS

Information is everything in the field of medicine. Often, it’s necessary to evaluate laboratory or prognostic data in ways that even the most up to date medical computer system cannot provide. Other times you may want to evaluate a patient’s prognosis quickly for point-of-care medical decisions or for speaking with family members. For these reasons, it’s useful to have a quality medical calculator on hand.

This is where Archimedes 360 comes in. While some calculators focus on a specific subset of medicine, Archimedes aims to be an all inclusive calculator, with well over 200 equations (In all honesty, I didn’t count, but I’ll take Skyscape’s word for it). These equations vary in scope from physiological principles (such as the A-a gradient) to prognostic values (ABCD2 stroke score) to pharmacology and population-epidemiology.

When opening the app, you’re greeted with your keyboard and the search field. This is great for finding what you need right away. The app has a very simple interface, with three ways to organize the calculators. In the Main Index, you get the complete listing of every equation in the app. They’re listed alphabetically, and the search bar at the top helps you jump to just what you need. With the large number of equations, and some variability in naming, this view isn’t the best for finding an equation when it’s needed. Rather, I would recommend it for browsing the list in your leisure time, to discover new tools that you might not have previously been aware of.

Next up is the Specialty Index. Here, equations are split into over 50 different categories, from specialties like Cardiology and Neurology to subsets like Alcohol and Students. This view is much more effective at locating the equation you need when you need it. A third view, Table of Contents, appears identical to the Specialty Index, except it doesn’t come with a search bar and has a folder structure rather than pop-up windows. Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see the utility of having this third view.

After choosing an equation, you’re brought to a new screen that starts with various input fields and radio buttons for the equation’s variables. These are all very clearly delineated and easy to use, and the equation auto-completes once they’re all placed. The results are in a bold faced, slightly green font that allows easy recognition of the answers. But that’s not all you get. You also get a view of the equation written out, as well as a reference and additional information explaining the utility of the equation. You’ll also see a normal range of values where appropriate. These are all very strong additions that make this calculator much more useful.

Despite this simple interface, the app isn’t without its flaws. For one, there seems to be some oddly placed equations in the contents, such as indications for a chest x-ray in neurology. Other equations simply don’t have much utility, like calculating age from a patient’s date of birth. Because of this, it would be useful if users could move equations around within the Table of Contents. Even better would be the inclusion of a favorites menu, so students and providers could have all the equations they use regularly in one place.

Pricing

The Archimedes 360 app is priced at $24.95. This includes free content updates for a year and continued use of the app after the free update period. You can also get a “1 year subscription” for $21.21, which includes free new editions of the app during the subscription period. As a medical calculator, I can’t recommend getting a subscription to this app. I don’t expect the math behind any of these equations to change significantly over the next year prompting a new release, and if an edition should come out that is a must-have, you can simply buy the app again, saving you from spending $21 dollars every year.

Likes:

• Extremely extensive list of equations
• Opens into search bar
• Extensive subdivisions into specialties
• Additional information for each equation

Dislikes/Future Updates I’d Love to See:

• Pricing – the main competition on the Android platform, called Mediquation, costs $4.99
• Favorites menu
• Customizing the table of contents for improved efficiency

Conclusion

Archimedes 360 has a very simple to navigate interface and an extensive list of medical equations to satisfy every type of provider. It also has information to supplement its equations to add an educational experience to its use. It’s a little pricey, though, so if you’re on a budget it may help to look elsewhere. There is also a free version of the Archimedes calculator that comes with the free skyscape suite, which is the same app with less equations. It’s a good idea to see if the free version suits your needs first.

Jason Paluzzi is a third year medical student at Wake Forest University School of Medicine

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by: Jason Paluzzi

Whether you’re a medical student, resident, nurse, or physician, you’ve no doubt encountered a language barrier at some point in your career.  Interpreters are available for common languages in most settings, but if time is an issue, you may need to deliver care faster than an interpreter can arrive. 

Over the years, people have gotten by with language dictionaries, hand gestures, family members, blue phones, and even smart phone apps all of which have proven somewhat cumbersome and impersonal in their own way.

Google Translate presents a possible solution to this problem.  As an extension of their widespread integration of speech-to-text throughout the android platform, Google created a language app centered around a straightforward concept; enter one language, output in another. 

While not explicitly a medical app, this functionality could easily be applied in a clinical setting.  Without compromising privacy with extra people, the non-english speaking patient would be able to interact directly with their physician and receive accurate and timely care.

The app has a very simple interface.  There is a text input field with a speech to text launcher, a language selector, and lists of “starred” favorites and recent translate history.  To begin with, this app comes with a whopping  58 languages, including common encounters such as Spanish, Chinese, and Korean to more rare selections like Haitian Creole, Yiddish, and Galician.  They are too numerous to list here, but, needless to say, if this app doesn’t have the language you need, you won’t have an interpreter on staff that speaks it either.  There is also a convenient flip button that changes the source and destination languages.  The favorites menu is a great time saver.  Once you’ve entered in your own database of history and physical questions in English, they can easily be called up and replayed in any language.

Even such a minimalistic interface is not without its faults.  The recent history menu has little utility after creating a thorough favorites list, unless several unexpected cases occur that require the same translation.  Also, with so much screen real-estate, it’s a little surprising that only two lines of input text are visible at a time in portrait mode.  Switching to landscape mode gives a much larger, paragraph sized entry field.  This criticism is more or less irrelevant here, however, since most of this app’s utility will come from the speech button.

Hitting the speech button brings a pop up that cues the user to speak into thephone.  A quick analysis later, and the app displays the translated phrase in text, along with a favorites and playback button.  The playback voices are surprisingly good for the languages tested; both English and Spanish sound fairly natural and have proper accentuation as well as accents.  Unfortunately, they do not reflect the intonation of questions.  At the very least, you won’t have to subject your patient to a Spanglish accent, which can be fairly alienating despite the good intentions.

Now, down to the heart of the matter; can it translate?  In order to truly evaluate the app’s potential, we decided to put Google Translate through a field test.  We asked an experienced Spanish speaking standardized patient if they would participate in a Google Translate led interview.  We wanted to see if it could get us through a history and physical in an active hospital environment.

I am a relatively soft spoken, deep voiced individual, and it quickly became apparent that unless I changed my speaking habits, the interview could not be conducted.  At my normal speaking tone, Translate had difficulty separating short, monosyllabic words, oftentimes combining two spoken words into one translated word.  At a normal pace, the app had difficulty marking the beginning and ending of words, oftentimes joining the last half of one with the first half of another.  As soon as the app turned “What brings you into the E.R. today?” into “What turned you into heart attack,” I knew a change of tactics was in order.

Speaking slightly louder than conversational volume with a clear pause between words helped Translate fair much better.  At the cost of sounding silly and harsh myself, Translate put out mostly correct grammar and 100% correct nouns and verbs for the remainder of the interview.  While Translate was more consistent in translating natural Spanish into English than the opposite, it was still not enough to prevent having to speak differently.  Having to ask a patient to speak loudly and with word pauses is time consuming, distracting, and unrealistic, especially if they are in acute distress.

While there is no substitute for speaking the same language as your patient, it’s unfair to ask physicians to learn so many languages.  Hopefully, we can use technology to bridge the gap for us.  One could argue that, without 100% accuracy, an app like this is useless in the clinical setting.  While it might be possible to get by with a few grammatical errors, vocabulary errors such as the one above could be catastrophic.  Even in a mock interview, our patient had an immediate negative reaction when the phrase “heart attack” came up at the beginning of the interview, and this could quickly lead to a serious medical error.  Google has big plans for real-time translation, and they expect it to vastly improve in the next few years.  As it stands, however, we can’t afford to compromise patient care by early-adoption of this technology.

Likes:

• Speech-to-text-to-speech preserves the doctor-patient interaction
• Huge list of languages to choose from
• Easy to use interface with convenient favorites and language flip features

Dislikes/Future Updates I’d Love to See:

• 100% Accuracy

Conclusion:

Google Translate shows a lot of promise, and can be useful for the tourist or the physician who wants to practice a language in their own time.  In the clinical setting, however, both the physician and the patient would be better served by a medical dictionary or blue phone.   The app is free, so don’t be afraid to take it for a test spin, and keep an eye on the evolution of this software in the coming years.

Jason Paluzzi is a third year medical student with interests in neurosurgery, trauma, disaster response, and healthcare for the underserved.  He recieved his undergraduate degree from the Johns Hopkins University in 2008.

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Repetition, repetition, repetition.  Most of the information I retained from the first few years of medical school is what I learned by repetition.  Unless I use some bit of knowledge regularly, I tend to forget it.  Reading an EKG is one of those skills in medicine that requires a lot of background knowledge, the ability to recognize patterns, and the clinical experience to know what looks “okay” and what looks “definitely not okay.”  While no app or textbook can replace the practical skills that one acquires through months or years of interpreting real EKGs and seeing patients, it helps to have a quick reference of ground rules and basic pattern descriptions to refresh one’s mind on the basic reading rules of EKGs.

Medical students and residents have been carrying around pocket-sized EKG manuals for decades.  But over the past several months a few ECG/EKG apps have cropped up on the Android Market, hoping to fill the need for an electronic alternative.

Here I take a look at three EKG interpretation and learning tools for Android mobile devices: EKGdroid, EKG:Advanced, and EKG Calipers.  Can Android really replace those pocket manuals and teach the next generation of doctors to read EKGs?

EKGdroid ($2.99) by Webpatient.net

EKGdroid is not a flashy app, but it has many of basic tools needed to interpret an EKG..  The interface is very basic in comparison to iPhone apps we have reviewed (ECG guide, Instant ECG, ECG Interpreter).  But the learning curve to navigate the app is essentially zero.  The user selects among the common normal and abnormal rhythms, and a zoom-able rhythm strip appears.  The user can navigate among the sub-menus to learn about characteristics of that rhythm.

This app is good for students who are already familiar with the basic theory of EKG.  The app will be useful to a 3rd or 4th year medical student or junior resident trying to refresh their memory on the basics of various rhythms and their causes.

This app is not good for students who want to learn “from scratch” how to read EKGs.  This app lacks information on basic EKG principles, like determining axis and rate.  In general, the app does not teach how to understand EKGs, but rather how to identify common patterns of pathology on EKGs.  This point might seem subtle, but trying to read EKGs without a basic understanding of the theory is an exercise in futility.

Finally, let it be known that EKGdroid is not an exhaustive manual of EKG interpretation.  Only the most basic information about each rhythm is presented.

EKG: Advanced ($1.99) by simpaddico

For those who love flash cards, EKG:Advanced is a great app for a quick quiz of EKG knowledge.  Like EKGdroid, this app is extremely easy to use and navigate.  The app uses the Q&A style and quick-feedback that physical flashcard lovers enjoy.  A Main Deck of cards contains all of the available questions, and the Faves menu allows the user to store wrongly-answered questions (or any set of cards) in another Faves Deck, which can be “flipped” through later.  Alternatively, the Ignore function will remove cards from the deck.  The Search function is useful – searching both questions and answers for the search term.  Settings allow the user to shuffle the decks, or view the answers to each card first (presumably to guess the question – like Jeopardy?).  I am still trying to figure out how one might use the Index.

Surprisingly, and unlike EKGdroid, there are no rhythm strips in this deck of flash cards.

In future versions, I would love to see a “make your own flashcard” function.

This app is good for flashcard buffs or students who know something about EKGs and want to test their knowledge of EKG with random questions.

This app is not good for an organized approach to learning EKGs.  The Main Deck is arranged in a seemingly random order, which is no way to learn EKG principles for the first time.

EKG Calipers ($0.99) by HC Dev

Trouble determining the heart rate on an EKG?  EKG Calipers is a simple app that can be calibrated to estimate heart rate by holding the edge of the phone to an EKG.  I guess the theory is that a caliper app reduces the need for (and cost of) another tool in the white coat.

This app may not be useful for health care providers and students who (1) trust the rate given on the electronic readout, or (2) trust in their own ability to calculate the rate on a EKG readout.  But for 99 cents, it might be worth a download.

Summary: Can Android teach EKG interpretation?

In short… not yet.  As compared to the iPhone apps we reviewed (see above links), these Android apps, as a group, fall short in three major areas.

1. No organized approach to learning EKG physiology, anatomy, and theory.  None of these apps individually (or as a group) teach the basics of EKG interpretation in an organized manner.  Without a great deal of prerequisite reading or background lectures to form a foundation of understanding, students will find these apps to be of little use.

2. Lacking depth.  The information on these apps is, as you would expect from the price, only superficial, and does not compare to pocket EKG manuals or iPhone EKG apps.

3. Aesthetically blah.  Like many of the medical apps currently available on the Android Market, these apps favor function over form.  While not unattractive, these apps look… well… bland compared to the polish and prim of the iPhone competition.

So for now, Android users who want to use their mobile device to learn how to read an EKG have a few options: (1) buy an EKG textbook (or pocket manual), (2) call the nicest Cardiology fellow you know when reading EKGs, or (3) hope for further development of these and other EKG apps in the Android Market.

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We’re giving away 5 promo codes for one of the most popular PDF readers in the App Store via the comments section of this post.  We’ve reviewed it on this site before and now the app is boasting some significant upgrades.

There were fireworks at the recent Google developer conference (“Google I/O”). Some of this was well deserved excitement around features found in the newest version of the Android mobile operating system (version 2.2, “Froyo”). Much of the fireworks, however, were due to loud, public taunting of the iPhone and Steve Jobs by senior Google executives.

Since everybody loves a contest, these statements by Google speakers were widely covered in the tech press and predictably stirred up heated comment threads throughout the blogosphere.

In truth, the schoolyard level of the rhetoric (see Kara Swisher) probably does not serve Google’s interests in the long run. This is because Google’s business relationships are symbiotic: Google needs its partners’ trust to continue delivering to Google, via their devices and services, massive amounts of user data for its primary business, which is selling advertising.

As a result of the mentioned spectacle, people seem to forget an important fact: that business-wise, Android is competing against Microsoft not Apple. Microsoft is a software vendor, like Google, but it makes billions by licensing its OS cheaply to multiple hardware vendors. Unfortunately, it seems Google has destroyed that marketplace by giving away its OS for free. John Gruber’s recent insightful post on the Google I/O conference provides more insight on this.

Apple, in contrast to Microsoft and Google, is more of a hardware vendor. Its business model depends on producing consistently great products and charging customers a premium for them. Apple makes a lot of money doing this and, as Gruber suggested, does not need more 20-25% of the marketplace to be wildly successful (it currently has 19%). Apple is only interested in the top portion of the market and already has an astonishing 90% of the market share for PCs costing more than $1000. But, if Apple stops making great products, its business model disappears.

Android promise is near-complete freedom for developers & handset makers and rapid iteration. This freedom will necessarily mean that Android will be fragmented, with multiple software and hardware versions (see Engadget) being sold at any given time. Thus, one can predict that handset and software incompatibilities will negatively impact application development, enterprise adoption and user experience. But, these impediments are not going to stop wide-spread adoption of Android since it only has to be “good-enough” to be accepted at low prices in the mass marketplace.

In the long run, as many have said, there will be more Android than iPhone devices – a lot more (see previous post). But, despite the heated rhetoric from Google, Apple will continue to thrive by continuing to deliver a highly polished user experience with a deep bench of applications deployed on a consistent platform. Nor will the iPhone vanquish Android with its permissive ecosystem, free licensing and large market share.

Related Posts:

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Health care professionals and students using Android are probably wondering what Android apps may be helpful in the health care setting.

Android developers continue to add more apps to the Market that relate to health and medical practice.  While the field of apps relevant to health care professionals on Android lags far behind the iPhone OS platform, there are several apps worth noting.

Here, we look at some of the more useful medical apps for clinicians, and list a few apps for patients as well.

The fact that we chose a “Top 5″ (and not “Top 10″), indicates just how limited the Android Market currently is for medical apps.

(1) Epocrates

It is hard to believe that an app as useful and effective as Epocrates is available for free.  See our extended review for Android here.

(2) Skyscape

Many Android users will download Skyscape simply to get the Archimedes, a highly useful collection of 100s of commonly used medical calculators.  Skyscape, however, does have other medical resources for health care professionals and students.  For Android users with OS v1.5 or lower who cannot run Epocrates, one of Skyscape’s main features “Rx Drugs” is a fine substitute.  Outlines in Clinical Medicine (OCM) comes with the free version, and is particularly useful for students learning a new topic in medicine (e.g. pediatric vaccination schedules).  Users, however, will find many of Skyscape’s more-robust features unavailable in the free-edition.

(3) PubMed Mobile

As we reviewed previously, PubMed Mobile is a clean app for quick searches of abstracts on PubMed.  It lacks full-text link capability, but allows the user to select and read abstracts, save searches and articles, and send articles to the printer, email, or social networking website.

(4) CPR – Choking

A wonderfully simple video-based app for learning basic life support skills on the fly.  The depth of information may not be sufficient to learn every caveat of BLS – and it certainly does not touch on ACLS, but for a quick refresher or first-time learner this app is a great starting point.

(5) Mobile Security Apps:

SmrtGuard and Contact Owner

This is a bit of a cop-out, lumping two apps into one ranking.  Mobile security, however, is of utmost importance in health care, particularly as app developers move to create mobile interaction with electronic medical records.  SmrtGuard is the most functional free security app.  Through a remote website users can track, data wipe, call-forward, remote listen, and backup data on their mobile device and SD card.  So if you lose your mobile device with sensitive information on it, you can wipe its data remotely.  The app is free, except for two features – remote backup and data restore to a new mobile device – which require an upgrade to the Pro version ($2.99 per month for 12 months).  Contact Owner is a basic app that displays a message about the owner’s contact information (or the information for an emergency contact) on the lock screen.  With contact information displayed on the lock screen, a person who finds your lost phone knows who to contact without accessing the phone’s data.

Conclusion:

Again, if you look at the top 10 free medical apps list we made for the iPhone OS, you saw a wealth of useful medical applications, that provide a great deal of value.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said with regards to free Android medical apps we have listed here.  They do provide value – but do not provide functionality even close to the level of the iPhone App Store.

We seriously hope this changes in the future.  The Droid and Nexus One are popular Android devices – offering great hardware waiting to be tapped.  We only hope Google can get their Market in order, and find ways to motivate developers to tap into the hardware these phones have to offer. If you know of some free Android apps we didn’t mention, make sure to leave a comment and let the rest of the community know.

Other Free Apps
Listed here are other medical apps – many of them medical calculators – that may be of interest to your practice or learning needs.  Note: many of the calculators are similar to those included within Epocrates or Archimedes (Skyscape).

• BMI Calculators (many of them)
• EuroSCORE – European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation Calculator
• Ankle Brachial Index
• A-a O2 gradient
• Fluids & Electrolytes
• Glasgow Coma Scale
• Insulin Calc
• Breast Cancer Risk Calc
• OB Dating/Calc
• My Days – Menstruation and Ovulation History
• Ovulation&Pregnancy
• AAOS Now – Monthly news magazine of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgons
• BeatDroid
• Psych Drugs
• Doctor Finder
• AgileMedSearch – an alternative to PubMed Mobile
• AgileMedCalc

Free Apps for Patients

• StopSmoking
• Pregnancy Ticker Lite
• OnTrack diabetes – blood glucose log
• Know your BMI
• Hands-only CPR – CPR directions and videos for the the untrained
• Calorie Counter
• Diet and Food Tracker
• Body Fitness

Iltifat Husain contributed to this post

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The First Lady yesterday announced an innovative new component to her Lets Move! campaign against childhood obesity yesterday – a call to developers to produce healthcare apps for the iPhone/Android/etc that encourage children to make healthy food choices and exercise more. Its an interesting and forward-looking approach to a major problem. While popular attention is focused often on adult obesity (e.g. the classic hip-level video of larger Americans walking), childhood obesity is not only a problem now but a big danger for the future. The fact that type II diabetes management is now a pediatric problem should be enough of a cry for help and this is definitely an interesting part of the answer – but at least one major challenge has to be addressed for success.

The program basically works like this – developers submit apps that either encourage healthy eating or exercise. A number of USDA datasets have been made available such as food groups for a 1,000 items, calorie counts, and so on that should be used in either the development of a “tool” or a “game” that promotes healthy behaviors. The apps are intended to benefit pre-teens but can be geared to kids or parents. Beyond those stipulations, pretty much anything goes. Oh and by the way, the winners – as judged by a panel including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and US CTO Aneesh Chopra – will get a total of $40k from the USDA.

The First Lady isn’t the only person to recognize this trend – Microsoft has been reported to be researching how its products (Xbox, Windows Phone 7) could be used in healthcare. Project Natal is one of their efforts to use the Xbox in physical therapy via a system that recognizes whole body movements. Scientific papers have even been published on the use of the Wii in neurological testing, specifically balance testing. So why not the iPhone? The First Lady certainly sees potential here and so do we. We’ve talked previously about how the iPhone has been used to manage autism and major depression as well as in smoking cessation.

All in all, this project is great idea because its taking the effort to a forum that kids are actively engaging in. And I trust that the ingenuity of the developer community, which has done wonders for medicine, will do something amazing here too. I recognize that this won’t solve or even dent the problem childhood obesity. But what it could do is actually send a message that successfully reaches kids. But here’s the key – no matter how good the app is, the entire message hinges on having parents and kids download it and use it.

This problem is where I really hope the ingenuity of developers jumps to a whole new level. Integration with social networks like Facebook that allow participants to form teams that support eachother in reaching exercise goals? Incorporation of contests and prizes into an exercise app that rewards key accomplishments? Or how about messages of support from popular figures like Miley Cyrus, Nick Canon, or that guy from Twilight? [On a complete aside, I’ve never felt older than I do right now] Obesity is a problem centered on maladaptive behavior patterns that become engrained in our brains and the tough part is breaking those behaviors, their reinforcement cycles, and redefining what gives us that rush of a good meal. A crisp salad with juicy, fresh fruits has to be better than the deep-fried Oreos covered in chocolate wrapped in bacon and then deep fried again.

For that reason, I think the best apps will be the ones that are not only the coolest to play with when the judges give them a go, but the ones that build in a platform for active longitudinal support. That’s just my humble opinion and frankly, having seen what iPhone developers have done so far, I expect to surprised by whatever comes out of this whole process in the end.

Related Posts:

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3. Misinformation or Mistakes? Rebuttal to “Doctors should choose Google Android over the iPhone for medical apps” post on KevinMD.com

Our goal here is simple – to help connect physicians, nurses, PA’s, NP’s, EMT’s, and students to the apps that will help make them better at caring for patients. Whether that’s by learning anatomy better, having tools to share with your patients, or an accessible refresher on how to do procedures, there’s a lot out there that could us and you take better care of physicians. So please let us know (in the comments section here) what apps you would like to see reviewed. We’d especially appreciate links to the app’s iTunes page. We want to be responsive to what our readers want, so give us a hand by pointing us to the apps you’d like to know more about. In the meantime, we’ll keep looking for apps that we want to make sure our peers to know about.

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For anyone interested in global health, there are a cadre of organizations that typically spring to mind as leaders – the CDC, USAID, and the Gates Foundation for example. I had the opportunity while at HIMSS to chat with folks from another organization that put boots on the ground immediately after the Haiti earthquake, is running programs worldwide on a number of endemic diseases (HIV/AIDs, malaria, lymphatic filiarisis), and operates a high-tech lab in Atlanta to develop field tools for public health workers. This is all from what I knew as a major defense contractor. But you’d never guess the that if you talk to Amy King (VP, Health IT) and Tom Verbeck (CTO, Health IT) of Northrop Grunman. Northrop entered the public health sphere just over a decade ago, looking to parlay the expertise it had developed via defense work – such as IT capabilities from intelligence projects – into a new health IT division. Since then, it has grown to employ over 200 epidemiologists along with scores of engineers, developers, clinicians, and other professionals, all of whom apply their range of talents to world’s biggest global health problems.

You may be wondering where the “mobile health” part comes in. For that, lets talk about a specific project that Northrop worked on to track HIV/AIDs in the Dominican Republic – a great anecdote of how mobile technology, on easy to use mobile devices, plus a strong IT support infrastructure can make a big difference and even turn every iPhone owner in the world into a public health field worker.

I spoke with one of Northrop’s engineers, who had been working on a project to track HIV/AIDs in this South American nnation. The video above is of a pretty simple app – pictured here on a heavy-duty PDA but functional on really any mobile device – that tracks HIV testing results. The public health worker shows up at a clinic outpost and tests everyone there with a rapid HIV test. On the app, they enter the name, some demographics, and the test result. As this process repeats itself all over the nation, this data coupled with GPS information, are synced to a national database built and analyzed by Northrop to identify and analyze epidemic trends. A natural extension of this kind of functionality would also to track HAART compliance, another critical factor in managing the HIV/AIDs epidemic. But while this project was fascinating, his vision for future applications was even more exciting. Imagine an emerging outbreak in the United States of some disease, such as influenza. Northrop releases an app for the iPhone, Android, Windows 7, Symbian, and all the other major mobile device platforms. This app is pretty simple – it asks for a name and includes a validated symptom questionnaire – and records GPS data for every entry. Overnight, everyone with an iPhone has been turned into a public health field worker – the disease can be tracked by millions of people, with the resulting mass of data used to much more accurately monitor disease trends. Updates could then be relayed back to via the app, such as public health notices (such as vaccine availability). Or similarly, take a disaster zone where a flood of relief workers has entered the field – each worker, whether a nurse or the guy driving that laundry truck, could download an app to track say diarrheal diseases. All of this would utilize more or less the same technology and back-end IT infrastructure that Northrop has put into place all over the world.

The possibilities are pretty exciting – Ms. King and Mr. Verbeck are clearly very enthusiastic about the work their team is doing. As Ms. King commented, the opportunities for Northrop to bring over their experience and knowledge from the military and intelligence worlds to public health have allowed them to unleash “the passion of people trying to make a difference.” While that may sound cheesy, I definitely believed her. According to Ms. King, the Northrop team is heavily embedded with many of the major public health players I mentioned above. They are, according to her, “everywhere the CDC is” and work with the CDC, Gates Foundations, and USAID (among others) to connect the dots on often parallel, independent efforts to address the same problem. Mr. Verbeck noted that Northrop employees deployed to Mexico City at the outbreak of the H1N1 epidemic, helping manage and analyze the data collected by the CDC workers. Another area he noted that Northrop is active in is health IT security. As the nation moves to a electronic health records operating, at least on some level, nationally, data security will be important and Northrop’s intelligence work clearly positions them well to engage in this arena.

To be honest, my conversation with Ms. King (who coincidentally was noted as a “Health IT Game Changer to Watch by ExecutiveBiz), Mr. Verbeck, and their engineers encompassed far more than I can fit into a single post. Some of their work, especially the stuff I described above, is a fantastic example of how mobile medical technology – even just simple apps for the iPhone and other consumer devices – can be transformational in healthcare. I’m definitely excited to see where the folks at this “stealth healthcare company”, as Ms. King described it, take public health next.

Related Posts:

1. Review of Electronic Personal Health Records
2. Epocrates’s recently announced Electronic Health Record will utilize many iPhone features
3. Triage and Treat Patients From Anywhere with Allscripts Remote iPhone App- An Electronic Health Record and ePrescribing Tool (upcoming Android support)

Perhaps it is in the middle of Grand Rounds, during a conversation with colleagues, or maybebetween seeing patients – there are times when a quick scan of the most recent medical literature would be helpful.

PubMed Mobile (Free) is an app for Android that allows the user to search PubMed, save articles and searches, view abstracts, and export selected abstracts and citations for future use.

The developer CRinUS also makes the similar apps: PubChem Mobile, and Entrez Sequence.  All three apps are free.

Here, I review PubMed Mobile, developed by CRinUS.

Search

PubMed Mobile app searches are actually quite similar to those of PubMed online.  The Main Menu is intuitive and easy to use.  Drop down menus allow the user to narrow the search using up to 3 fields at one time. 

Search Fields include author, journal title, article title, mesh terms, and numerous others.  The only search Limits are humans, animals, males, and females.  Limiting to “Core Clinical Journals” and “English” language – the two that I use most often – are not included in this app.

A nice feature for Android users who prefer landscape orientation or have a slide-out keyboard is the full functionality in both orientations.  One annoyance, though, is that text entered into textboxes in landscape are lost when flipping to portrait.  The issue, though, is avoidable by simply clicking “search” before flipping.

Search Results and Abstracts

Search results appear almost instantly on Wi-Fi and 3G.  The search results are very similar or identical to the test searches I ran on a computer for comparison.  After searching, articles can be sorted alphabetically by author, journal, or title, or sorted by publication date.   Each article has a checkbox, so that multiple citations can be sent at once, or saved for later (see below).

Abstracts and citations, not full articles nor pdf files, are available for reading.  Despite the hyperlink look, there are no direct links to the browser.

Saving Articles and Searches

Searches can also be saved for later perusal in “My Searches.”  Articles can be saved using the checkboxes and menu key.  All checked articles are put directly into “My Articles.”  The ability to organize articles into subfolders would be a nice feature, but is not present.

Sending Articles

Articles can be exported on Android via email, shared on GoogleReader or another RSS catcher, sent to the printer (using PrinterShare), or shared on one of the many social networking accounts.  The whole process is quick, familiar for Android users, and requires only a few clicks.

PubMed Mobile is great for…

medical students and residents wanting to impress an attending with mention of a relevant and recent paper…or multitasking on a long bus-ride…

PubMed Mobile is NOT for…

printing full-text articles or organizing citations for a research paper.

Likes

• Extremely quick Search and Send on 3G and WiFi.
• Simple to use.  The learning curve is essentially zero.
• Looks and acts like PubMed.  Searches are accurate and nearly identical to online PubMed searches.
• Ability to send multiple searches.
• Saved searches and articles.

Dislikes

• Inability to link directly to a browser for full-text versions.
• Text lost when flipping from landscape to portrait (see above).

More functions we want to see…

• EZproxy support (e.g. through an institutional library)
• A note-taking tool for saved articles
• Synchronization with desktop-based interface or reference managers (Zotero, RefMan, EndNote, etc)

Conclusion

This free app is a fast and user-friendly way of searching abstracts and citations on PubMed, with the ability to quickly send links and citations to an email, printer, or social networking account.  We look forward to future versions of this app, or others like it, that may expand functionality to include full-text links and interaction with reference manager software.

Visit the App Website »

Related Posts:

1. Top 5 Free Android Medical Apps
2. Epocrates Rx for Android gets reviewed – Our first Android medical app review
3. Can Android teach EKG interpretation? An overview of three popular Android EKG apps [Android medical app review]

This article is part of iMedicalApps HIMSS 2010 Coverage. It includes a brief review of the Allscripts Remote app for the iPhone as well as details of a conversation with Allscripts executives who revealed that they are moving to development of an Android app.

When Allscripts announced the launch of Allscripts Remote last year, an iPhone application for their popular electronic medical record, it was widely touted as a transformational move. Forbes Magazine called this an app “that could change medicine.” Allscripts origins are interesting, shifting from prepackaged medicine to e-prescribing solutions before entering the electronic health record industry. In fact, according to the marketing folks at the Allscripts booth, they are the largest source of e-prescriptions in the United States. And while Epic, Cerner, and Eclypsis may be the players many of us commonly think about, Allscripts definitely definitely is not little – according to their most recent SEC filing, Allscripts had over $500million in revenue for 2009 with a net income of $26million. By comparison, Epic also had $500million in revenue for 2009. So the inclusion of a rich, clinically useful mobile platform with Allscripts Remote has certainly been a big move in the EHR world.

The iPhone App: Frankly, this is the mobile EHR app that clinicians have been waiting for. Imagine being at dinner with your family. The paging service for your practice sends you a text – Mr. Jones called in because he’s got some swelling in his legs.

With the Remote app, you don’t even have to leave your seat (although you probably should for HIPAA reasons). When you open the app you’ve got several frames that you can enter, but you obviously first go into the EHR and look up Mr. Jones. You get a list of all the conditions Mr. Jones has been followed for (oh turns out he has CHF), his current medication list (he takes 20 mg Lasix once daily), and allergies. So you call Mr. Jones back (you also have his contact information) and he says “Doctor I ran out of my Lasix!” Well, the masters of e-prescribing have you covered. You can simply click on the Rx icon at the bottom of the screen to go over to his med list, tap on the “Lasix” to issue a new prescription, and send it to his favorite pharmacy.

Or lets say things are a little more serious – Mr .Jones has shortness of breath also. In that case, you simply touch the ER icon at the bottom of the screen to locate the nearest emergency room and fax a summary of Mr. Jone’s office record to that ER as you tell him to go there. Mr Jones now says “Thank you doctor – I’ll go as soon as I finish this movie and my bucket of popcorn.” You conclude your care of Mr. Jones by going over to the last field, a documentation icon, which allows you to enter a brief note on the call for Mr. Jone’s primary physician, probably with a comment that Mr. Jones may need some help managing his diet.

I knew that Allscripts Remote could do all of this when I walked in, but I was still amazed. The UI was cool and intuitive, with features like a touch-to-call feature in the patient’s individual record that show you that the folks at Allscripts thought of the little things that make a clinicians life easier.

The Android App: The Androids among us should get excited – I heard at the Allscripts booth that they are currently developing their Remote app for Android with hopes of release in the near future. More on that as we hear it! Remote is already available for Blackberry and Windows Mobile, but not with all the features available on the iPhone – I suspect its with Android that we’ll see the same level of functionality on a competing platform.

Allscripts EHR offerings are pretty diverse, including software-as-a-service solution for as little as $300, geared to the smaller practices that aren’t looking to make a huge investment in an in-house EHR. These kinds of offerings will be crucial for companies like Allscripts to capture the small-practice market, where a 70% of healthcare is delivered according to some studies. These practices, of which up to 80% may be looking at EHR adoption now based on a 2003 survey, may find particular appeal in the web-based EHR’s that we have discussed previously. However, Allscripts Remote is likely to challenge the mobility argument for web-based EHR’s in that this app is designed with an intuitive UI and rich features that clearly fit the clinician’s workflow – it will be interesting to see whether the web-based EHR vendors can develop, at least in the near future, a similarly rich, intuitive mobile interface for their products. As Mr. Hollis from MacPractice -another EHR vendor with a pretty cool iPhone interface – pointed out, there may be much richer possibilities with local apps and software than with a web-based platform.

Related Posts:

1. Allscripts dominating mobile electronic health records in North Carolina – over 3,300 individual physician practices
2. Medtronic CareLink and Your Electronic Health Record Make Remote Monitoring of Cardiac Devices a Reality
3. Epocrates’s recently announced Electronic Health Record will utilize many iPhone features

In this video we check out two of the Dragon Medical Mobile Apps (releasing later this year) for the iPhone, Dragon Medical Mobile Dictation and Medical Mobile Search.  We recorded this video from Nuance’s booth at the HIMSS conference

Nuance, the makers of Dragon Medical Dictation, a favorite dictation service among many physicians, announced at HIMSS they are bringing the same medical transcription service to the iPhone.

Many readers may have noticed the recent arrival of a free Nuance “Dragon” app in the App store.  This simple app allows the user to speak directly into the iPhone and receive a nicely transcribed text document 15-30 seconds later, ready for email or for copy and paste.

At that time, Nuance did not specify their future intentions, but many speculated a medical version would be forthcoming.  Indeed, at HIMSS, Nuance announced three new iPhone medical apps: Mobile Dictation, Mobile Search, and Mobile Recorder, all named with the prefix Dragon Medical (i.e. “Dragon Medical Mobile Dictation”, etc).

Dragon Medical Mobile Dictate

The medical app of immediate interest to physicians is the Mobile Dictation one, which is similar to the free Nuance application, except for the very important distinction that the back end is now connected to the very reputable Dragon medical transcription engine – highly optimized to transcribe doctor speak. Like the most recent version of the desktop Dragon Dictation application, the specific “training” time is required, although the application does learn the user’s voice over time.

Currently, the application only returns text into the iPhone, albeit quickly, and the physician is required to transfer the text into another app via email or cut & paste. We were told the Mobile Dictation app should be available by Q3 2010 (late summer).  Pricing is not yet determined and it will initially launch on the iPhone but per Nuance, Android and Blackberry versions are planned.

Dragon Medical Mobile SDK

The real power of the application is the accompanying SDK (software development kit) that Nuance is previewing.  This SDK will allow electronic health record (EHR) vendors to directly access the application from inside the EHR.  For example, Epic’s Haiku iPhone app could allow dictation directly into a patient’s record in Epic without leaving the Haiku app.

Thus far, we are told that Eclipsys will be incorporating it into their nursing documentation module since they already partner with Nuance, although, having seen the demonstration, I would suspect the SDK will gain wide and quick adoption by the other EHR vendors. The other obvious future integration will be with the newly announced Epocrates iPhone based EHR – almost making the smart phone a complete doctor’s office.

Dragon Medical Mobile Search

The second application is called Dragon Mobile Search and is analogous to Google’s iPhone app in that it performs a search based on voice transcription. The difference is this app searches medical databases, such as Medscape, Epocrates, Medline or Google.

The search sites are displayed as a series of icons across the screen which the user can rotate through, described like a carousel by Nuance [reference above video]. It seems to work well enough but is hampered by the fact that the searches are presented to each site as a simple text query without the sub-categorizing that the Google app performs, which quickly allows the user to drill down to the actual item of interest. Perhaps if those databases exposed specific APIs for search, it would be more powerful. I would expect usage of this to vary on the individual level since its not always more efficient to say one word than it is to type it.  Nuance has a solid release date of April 30 for this medical app.

Dragon Medical Mobile Recorder:

The third application, Mobile Recorder, acts as a catalogue for previous recordings and allows the user to identify recordings with individual patients, if there is integration between the application and the physician’s or hospital EHR.  This recorder is designed for healthcare organizations that use Nuance’s enterprise dictation and transcription software, eScription, or the Dictaphone Enterprise Speech System.

The obvious advance for physicians will be use of Nuance’s SDK to integrate voice dictation dictation directly into EHR applications and thus make it seamless, rather than adding to the physician’s workflow.

In a separate announcement, Nuance also reported their advances in natural language processing. This consisted of two parts, the acquisition of a company named Language and Computing, described as a “a pioneering developer of clinical narrative processing technology” and a strategic partnership with Massachusetts General Hospital which had an internally developed natural language processing application they called “Smart Dictation”.

The vision is that a physician can simply dictate an encounter and, using natural language processing, the key parts of the note such as chief complaint, history, exam, etc. can be pulled out and used to populate structured data fields inside the EHR.  Pretty ambitious.

Like every other vendor at HIMSS, Nuance proposes this could help healthcare institutions comply with “meaningful use” and thus qualify for HITECH (stimulus) funds. More reasonably, they also claim this could help healthcare organizations with “data mining, coding for billing, disease management and clinical decision support.”

Nuance’s announcement seems to have generated a fair bit of interest, judging from other websites and the traffic at the booth. I suspect this is justified as physicians are only too happy to get rid of their dictaphones and not have to sit in front of a computer microphone, not to mention paying for transcription.  I’m also curious to see what other applications the SDK might find a home – reducing the need for keyboards, especially as a new generation of tablets starts to fan out into the health care field.

Related Posts:

1. The future of mobile medical technology – From iPhone dictation software to mobile ICU monitors – Summary of HIMSS 2010 [Video]
2. Voice controlled electronic health records – Nuance could make it happen
3. Epocrates’s recently announced Electronic Health Record will utilize many iPhone features

Health care professionals have been patiently waiting for the expansion of the Android universe to hit the world of medical apps.  With the exception of Unbound Medicine – who have done a very nice job in rolling their products into the Android Market – users of Android mobile devices have thus far been relegated mostly to the world of medical calculators and dictionaries. For Android owners, the release of Epocrates could not have come sooner. If you are in the field of medicine, you are probably familiar with Epocrates.  We reviewed Epocrates on the iPhone before.  And for health care professionals and students, Epocrates, honestly, needs no introduction.  From the short-white-coat student to the tech-savvy clinician, Epocrates has, for years, been an essential tool in refreshing those synapses you made in pharmacology class (or didn’t make). The field of pharmacology is ever changing.  Epocrates helps many of us stay on top of it all, and improve care for patients.

Keep in mind, the version of Epocrates Rx currently available and reviewed here is still in BETA.  So many of the richer features available on other platforms are still missing for Android. Also, one of the difficulties in reviewing any app for Android is the potential for variability in user experience between OS versions, and from phone to phone.  This review is based on the HTC MyTouch, which runs on Android OS v1.6.

Epocrates downloads from the mobile-based Android Market.  Total application size is 6.48MB.  This is fairly large – by comparison, Google Maps with Navigation is only 5.22MB.  Users who do not see Epocrates in the Market are probably running an older version of the Android OS.  Epocrates runs on v1.6 or later. This is a problem for many Android owners who bought phones before Fall, 2009. Unfortunately the only viable solution (that I know of) is to write your phone manufacturer with pleas for OS updates. A free Epocrates online account is necessary to run the app.

Layout and Navigation

Don’t let the poor-quality screenshots fool you, the app looks great on the MyTouch. Epocrates opens quickly, and does not slow phone function while it runs.  The app runs well and looks sharp in both portrait and landscape orientations.  On T-Mobile, you can even search Epocrates while on a phone call.  Can your phone and your network do that?

The main menu contains:

• Search Epocrates
• A self-promotion banner (“Start using Pill ID now”)
• Favorites Menu (including Interaction Check and Pill ID)
• Tools Menu (including Drug Reference, Tables, and Med Math)
• Other Menu (including History, and Help)

Every screen in the app contains the “e” button, which brings the user back to the main menu in one click.  Those familiar with Epocrates on other platforms will find the user interface and navigation very familiar.  New users of Epocrates on Android will be able to navigate the very intuitive UI with little effort.  The “Add to Favorites” button located at the bottom of the page allows you to put almost any drug or table in the Favorites Menu.  This is a great function for the wards – particularly for those services where there are only a handful of drugs commonly used.  On a Cards rotation, med students could put diuretics, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, and statins right on the front menu.  The History menu creates a log of your navigation through Epocrates, and allows a quick return to previously viewed sub-menus and pages.

Other features

Like Epocrates on the iPhone, the Android BETA version has many useful features that run very well on Android.  Briefly…

• Interaction Check:  Some clinicians have an encyclopedic memory of drug interactions.  For the rest of us, this feature allows a quick check of interactions – benign or deadly.  Up to 30 drugs can be added to the interaction list.  Very useful for those middle-of-the-night calls about changing Mr. Johnson’s antibiotic.
  **Interactions can also be viewed for each drug, or added to the Interaction Check List from an each Drug Reference page
• Pill ID: A standard feature of Epocrates.  For identifying the ambiguous round pink pill that the patient in the clinic or ED sort-of remembers taking.  Photos of each pill can be enlarged with a click.
• Drug Reference: Browse by Drug Class.  For example, Cardiovascular –> Antiplatelets –> anagrelide.  Extensive drug information with open-and-close menus, including:
  • Adult Dosing
  • Peds Dosing
  • Blackbox Warnings
  • Contraindications/Cautions
  • Adverse Reactions
  • Drug Interactions
  • Safety/Monitoring
  • Pharmacology
  • Manufacturer/Pricing
  • Pill Pictures (same as the Pill ID menu)

• Tables: An under-appreciated feature of Epocrates with helpful clinical suggestions, guidelines, and protocols.
  Looking for the Beers Criteria of potentially inappropriate drugs for geriatric patients?
  Walk into a code – patient in Asystole/PEA – and don’t remember which IV drug to give?
  This menu has those answers, and many more too numerous to mention here.
• MedMath: Over 40 clinical calculators.  A nice add-on feature with many commonly-used medical calculators, but not nearly as comprehensive as other medical calculators like Skyscape’s Archimedes (another free app available on the Android Market).
• Help: A minor menu containing Abbreviation List and Epocrates Support information.

Likes

• All the features of Epocrates, running well on Android.  Fantastic, as expected.
• Attractive and user-friendly UI.
• Extensive and relevant information.
• A very useful tool for clinicians at the point of patient care.

Dislikes

• Screen sensitivity was uncharacteristically unresponsive on the MyTouch.  This problem was usually fixed after flipping through a few menus, and coming back to the problem area.  A mild annoyance if this is a “beta issue”, but a major problem if not resolved in future versions.
• Only available for Android Operating System v1.6 and newer.
• The banner below the search bar announcing features of the app.  Not needed, and consumes valuable screen property.
• We patiently await the arrival of premium clinical features in future.

Conclusion

The newest member of the Epocrates family is a long-awaited and warmly-welcomed addition to the Android OS.  While still in Beta, this free version of Epocrates Rx performs well (with the exception of some screen insensitivity problems that may be specific to the MyTouch), and lives up to what health care professionals and students have come to expect from Epocrates. Epocrates Rx (Free) is a must-have app for Android owners in the medical field.  And you can’t beat the price tag. We look forward to future releases of other Epocrates products (including Rx Pro, Essentials, and Essentials Deluxe).  Our readers can expect a continued and extended review, complete with more screenshots, when these versions are introduced to the Android Market.

Link to Website and Download: http://www.epocrates.com/products/android/

Editors Note: This is the first medical app review we’ve done for the Android platform. We’re excited that Brett will be providing the site reviews of Android medical apps, along with iPhone medical apps.

Related Posts:

1. Epocrates app now available for Android Smartphone – Medical professionals with Droid and Nexus One rejoice
2. Epocrates Essentials App Review for the iPhone – Does the legendary medical app live up to the hype?
3. Top 5 Free Android Medical Apps

Google’s smartphone operating system – Android – has been around for well over a year, yet the marketplace continues to lag behind Apple’s App Store with its meager collection of useful medical apps.  The biggest player in mobile medical reference software is now changing this perception.  Today Epocrates announced the availability of a free beta version, Epocrates Rx, for the Android platform, officially making it an android medical app. [We recently did a full review of Epocrates, including Epocrates Rx, for the iPhone].

This is exciting news for health care professionals who have Android phones – because their numbers are growing.  Google recently announced 60,000 Android handsets are shipping each day, coming out to 5.4 million handsets per quarter.  As a reference, Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones last quarter.

With this proliferation of Android phones, especially the Droid and Nexus One, many in the medical field can now feel more confident in buying the Droid or Nexus One.  That’s how big of an affect Epocrates has.  Almost one million healthcare professionals rely on Epocrates as a medical reference, and for most who have smartphones, its the first app we download.  I’ve had multiple friends with Android phones they love, but their only complaint is they don’t have Epocrates – not anymore.

Epocrates is taking a similar approach to releasing the software as they did for the iPhone: release a free beta version, Epocrates Rx, and then release the premium versions later this year.  Our guess is the premium versions will mimic the ones available for the iPhone, Epocrates Rx Pro, Epocrates Essentials, Epocrates Essentials Deluxe.  In our review we take a look at the features included in each of these versions.

There is one issue many Android users might gripe about: You need a device with Android v1.6 or higher.  If you bought an Android phone even a few months ago, there is a chance you might have Android v1.5.  This issue is one we’ve highlighted in the past, the lack of compatibility with different versions of Android.

Here are some details on the free Android version of Epocrates Rx.

Features:

• Drug Information – Ability to access thousands of brand and generic drugs, with indications, contraindications, retail pricing, mechanism of action, and lots more
• Pill ID – Identify a drug based on the color, shape, or imprint code
• Drug Interactions – One of the most popular features Epocrates offers.  Can check the interactions for up to 30 drugs at a time, especially useful for your geriatric patients.  Hopefully they aren’t on 30 drugs though.
• Tables and Calculators – Includes MedMath, a feature rich calculator we mentioned in our review of Epocrates.

Heads up: We’re going to do a full review of this Android version later this week.

Update: Palmdoc.net has a great article about how Epocrates for WebOS is coming “real soon”. [Web OS = think Palm Pre]

Related Posts:

1. Epocrates Rx for Android gets reviewed – Our first Android medical app review
2. Should medical professionals get an iPhone, Blackberry, or Android phone? It’s complicated.
3. Nexus One and the Android Family vs. the iPhone: What’s the Medical Professional To Do?

This week, Microsoft announced the end of Windows Mobile and introduced its successor, a completely redesigned platform called Windows Phone 7.  While Microsoft’s creative energies don’t appear to have been expended on the new name, it may be because they were drained after redesigning just about everything else about their platform.

Even the more skeptical reviewers of Windows Phone 7 at least acknowledged the breadth of the overhaul of Microsoft’s mobile platform. Here at iMedicalApps, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the iPhone/iPad and the opportunities their unique user interface, ever expanding suite of medical apps, and other key features present for the medical world. One challenge we’ve frequently acknowledged, however, is that while many health care providers carry Apple in their pockets, Microsoft dominates the remainder of the healthcare world. And as more and more health systems look to adopt electronic medical records with mobile interfaces, Microsoft’s latest volley couldn’t have been at a more opportune moment.

Before delving into this, lets consider the qualities that made the iPhone OS popular in the first place. The obvious first point is the revolutionary iPhone OS user interface. If history is any guide, its hard to imagine that Microsoft will really come up with anything better than Apple. But that’s not what they need to do. For a shot at adoption in the healthcare world, they could probably get by with something that’s simply almost as good and let other strengths make up the difference. In any case, judging by the demo clips and information I’ve seen so far, it looks like Microsoft has created a distinct user interface that could be a lot of fun to use. But we’ll have have to wait and see.

The second key feature of the iPhone OS that makes it a hit in the medical world is it’s dynamic and active developer community. Apps range from low cost solutions for specialty-specific issues, such as apps for urology, to interfaces for EMR’s like the Haiku-Epic combination. Aside from the “hubs” (software that integrates information from multiple sources into one spot, such as Facebook, Twitter, Gmail contacts into the People hub), there’s not enough information to yet assess what the developer community would face for Windows Phone 7. Hopefully, by MIX10 in mid-March, we’ll have some more information and a better idea of how Windows Phone 7 stacks up.

But the one area Windows Phone 7 is very likely to hold a clear advantage, especially in the medical world, rests on the mere fact that its a Microsoft product. Virtually every widely used EMR is on a Windows Operating System, so integrating a Windows-based mobile device would certainly be easier than an iPhone OS device. This also means integration with the Office suite, Outlook, and all of the other Microsoft enterprise software that is being used at virtually every hospital and health care practice in the country.

Plus, Microsoft is touting the fact that this new mobile OS will fit in perfectly with its rapidly growing SharePoint server software, basically the cloud component of Office. For health care centers already using Microsoft software, all of this represents an upgrade of what they already have, rather than having to deal with the obvious issues that would come with the iPhone OS.

All of that being said, its certainly not clear that these potential advantages will materialize nor that Microsoft can match the strengths of Apple. In addition, Google’s launch of Android, its movement towards cloud-based enterprise software, and its experience in information management are assets that suggest it will be a healthy competitor. For the foreseeable future, Apple holds an enormous lead thanks to its robust developer community, widespread acceptance, and the fact that it has demonstrated that Windows compatibility issues are surmountable (based on desktop experience). So for me, what is most exciting about this new Microsoft OS isn’t any inherent quality it has, but that it represents a legitimate new competitor entering the mobile medical world.

Related Posts:

1. Microsoft researching how Windows Phone 7 series and XBox 360 can be used in the hospital
2. How the iPhone has paved the way for a quicker transition by the Healthcare industry to an Apple OS Tablet
3. Should medical professionals get an iPhone, Blackberry, or Android phone? It’s complicated.