[Ed: this review is for the "Lite" version. Please see the brief addendum at the conclusion referring the recently announced Blausen Human Atlas HD V3.0]

By Brian Wells, MS-3, MSM, MPH

Human anatomy. It’s one of the foundations of medicine and a necessity to any aspiring clinician to his or her mastery of the basic sciences. Blausen Human Atlas is an education tool to advance this mastery. Whether you are an experienced clinician, a sleep-deprived medical student, or an aspiring scholar in one of the other medically-related professions, you’ll find a lot to like in this application.

From the description in iTunes:

The Blausen English Human Atlas combines 3D medical animations in English with a cross searchable medical term glossary and detailed still images. For doctors, nurses, students and consumer caregivers, this is the ideal resource for communicating core concepts, right in the palm of your hand and right at point of care.

In its opening graphic, the Blausen Human Atlas gives you a picture of the information contained within. The opening page contains a 3D representation of a male human body that can be rotated left and right and zoomed in & out. Major blood vessels, organs, bones and selected muscles and lymph nodes are clearly visible in the 3D representation.

On this home screen, there are options for watching videos and browsing the glossary of conditions or anatomical parts. Please note that this application does require internet access via 3G or Wi-Fi. Normally, I do not prefer applications that are internet-only without at least the option of caching but it makes sense in this case as the space required to store all images and videos would not be a welcome tradeoff to using an internet connection.

As one can quickly see, the glossary contains a number of images about which to learn and view. The images are beautifully rendered and allow for touch pinch and zoom. However, for some items there are multiple images and the description does not change based on the image. This could be confusing for some since some images (such as those with the esophagus) incorporate surgical procedures yet the description tagged to the picture still only describes the anatomy. These images are also often stills captured from the video, not 3D renders and thus do not allow for rotation.

Several videos are available in the Lite version. However, the full version contains over 150 3D animations. In addition to the animations, the full version also has 3D rotatable renders of nine full body systems, a searchable 1,500+ term medical glossary and 1,200 still images from the animations.

In the application itself, other atlases are available for purchase. Each atlas listing provides a brief description as well as a link for in-app purchase. The Atlas also supports 12 languages, including Arabic, British, Castilian, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish.

Since this review covers the Lite version, a comparison cannot be made with other anatomy apps, such as the Netter Flash Cards (iTunes link) or Netter’s Anatomy Rohen’s Photographic Anatomy Flash Cards (iTunes link). Students looking to use this Atlas as a source of study material should consider the depth of content in the Atlas compared with their individual learning goals.

Blausen Human Atlas can also be used to help explain conditions to patients. Instead of just showing a few non-moving images and trying to verbally simplify the condition, the clinician can reference one of the many videos with its audio commentary to help the patient understand his or her condition. This could become a launching point for the patient to explore their concerns and ask questions, potentially improving the patient’s experience and rapport between the patient and clinician.

Conclusion

Overall, I was quite impressed by the clarity and ease of use of this application. If the quality in the Lite version is any indication of the full Atlas, I would say users are in for quite a treat. The animations are nicely rendered with appropriate commentary and the still images adequately convey information without being overly complex or over the top in their use of technology.

I would easily recommend users of the iOS platform to download the Lite version of the Atlas and see it in action. I think you’ll be impressed as well.

Video

Check out this brief video I made highlighting the features of Blausen Human Atlas Lite.

iTunes Links:

• Blausen Human Atlas Lite
• Blausen Human Atlas

Testing Platform: This application was tested on a 32 GB iPhone 4 running iOS 4.0.1. Data access was provided over 802.11n Wi-Fi on a 17 Mbps/1 Mbps connection with a 24 ms ping as measured by Speedtest.net (http://www.speedtest.net).

Addendum

The folks at Blausen just informed us that version 3.0 of their iPad application has been announced. A video demo is available on their channel here. From the press release:

This latest version enables users to save individual animations directly to their iPad and play them when they wish, with no delay or waiting for videos to load. Developed internally by Houston-based Blausen, the new v3.0 version is fully optimized for performance on Apple’s new iPad tablet. It is a response to clinicians’ requests for a faster way to use the visually stunning Blausen content to educate their patients in office, exam room and bedside. In addition to the caching capability, the new app supports outputting of saved animation videos to external monitors to provide enhanced viewing opportunities.

It is available in the App store.

As the debut of the iPad fast approaches, speculation about it is reaching a fevered pitch. Scanning the thousands of articles written about the iPad’s potential, one may walk away thinking that Steve Jobs has just cured cancer, ended global warming, and established peace in the Middle East. Some people are even calling Apple’s latest creation the “Jesus tablet.” While the iPad probably falls somewhere short of some of those lofty projections, it has already done what Apple seems to do best – transformed the way we look at an existing market, in this case mobile computing and the tablet. We’ve talked previously about how the iPhone paved the way for the iPad in healthcare. Again, Apple’s entry into this market has signaled a huge shift in the way users will interact with the tablet and, through it, their environment.  This new user interface has a great deal of potential to change the way physicians deliver care. But perhaps more importantly, it could also have profound impacts on the way patients experience healthcare.

Innovative therapies

Over the past decade, there have been a number of examples of novel technologies being used either therapeutically for sick patients or in preventative care. For example, there have been numerous trials, with more success in the pediatric population, that use text messaging to remind patients to take their medications. When the iPhone transformed the user interface for the smartphone, therapies centered on that platform also emerged – autism and major depression are two conditions with iPhone apps that are therapeutic in nature. Enter the iPad. With a more advanced touchscreen, a high-quality webcam, and perhaps even 3d graphics, the possibilities become far more rich.

Take children with cancer – these kids can be hospitalized for weeks at a time and, due to the chemotherapy, stuck largely in isolation for most of that time. An app that utilizes the webcam to connect kids while playing a fun and interactive game together would provide a far richer interaction than a networked gaming console. Or consider the numerous elderly patients who succumb to delirium while in the hospital largely because, on top of being sick, life in the hospital, void of sunlight and normal sleep-wake patterns, gets so disorienting. Consider an app that, much like the mentally challenging games on the Nintendo DS, helps older patients stay a little more active during the day and perhaps ward of delirium. Will the iPad cure cancer or, for that matter, anything? No. But what it will do is provide some interesting and creative adjuncts to standard therapy that could make the patient’s quality of life a little better.

Improved patient-provider communication

In the ever growing iPhone app store, educational apps are among the most numerous. One of the biggest reasons why is because the interface allows user to interact with the material in a number of different ways. Take the Blausen Human Atlas or Pocket Heart – both of these apps allow the user to interact with anatomy in an incredibly rich way. With much more powerful graphics capabilities, these kinds of apps can certainly be taken to another level.

Consider a patient going into surgery. Today, explanation of the surgery is restricted to some form of charades by the surgeon and 2d radiology images. An app that allows 3d reconstructions of a patient’s scans to be pulled onto the iPad and manipulated would allow for a far better explanation, improving patient-physician communication. Or how about the diabetic patients or the heart failure patients? These poor folks are often subjected to hours of mind-numbing “educational” videos in the hospital – iPad apps could bring an element of interactivity that allows patients to engage with material that is critical to their health. Finally, consider the stroke patient. There are rumors that the iPad’s camera will be sufficiently sensitive to allow facial recognition. Perhaps then it could also be used to detect facial, or for that matter limb and trunk, motion with apps designed for post-stroke rehabilitation therapy. In a “game” format, individual goals outside of professional physical therapy could help empower the patient as they fight to recover.

The key opportunity that the iPad offers here is not just another platform to convey information, but a way to make it fun and engaging. While the iPad won’t replace a good physician taking the time to talk to a patient, it could certainly augment the patient-provider relationship in a fun and engaging way.

These are just a few ways that the iPad could transform the way a patient understands their illness and interacts with their healthcare providers. Among the most elusive goals in medicine is helping patients understand complex diseases and empower them to manage these conditions. Nothing will ever replace a strong patient-provider relationship, a personal support network, and evidence-based therapies based on a thorough scientific foundation. But the iPad could herald the introduction of innovative adjuncts that help patients take control of their own health and improve their quality of life.

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.