Dermatology
Acne “treatment” apps could be taking advantage of patients
Getting a new medication or medical device approved in the United States requires embarking on path so nightmarish it makes Dante’s Inferno look like the yellow brick road. And while most clinicians and bureaucrats would agree that we need to find a better way, its not hard to imagine how we ended up with such a complex regulatory structure. Going back over 2,000 years to the Hippocratic Oath, the practice of medicine has rested largely on two principles – beneficence and non-maleficence. The latter refers to the idea that we, as clinicians, first do no harm while the former requires that we act foremost in the best interest of the patient. In attempting to uphold these principles, we have created an enormous regulatory structure intended to act as a sieve allowing only those interventions of proven benefit to reach the general public.
I don’t claim its anywhere close to a perfect system. And as there are enormous amounts of money at stake, often involving a very vulnerable group of people, its our responsibility to stay vigilant against those who attempt to manipulate the system as well as treatments that are of questionable value. And there are a small group of app developers whose apps may fall into the latter category with claims to treat acne with light – well, that is unless a patient is willing to hold their iPhone to their face for the next 100 years.
Can’t Figure Out That Rash? Use VisualDx Mobile App to Construct a Visual Differential Diagnosis [App Review]
How many of your patients, inpatient or outpatient, have skin lesions? How do you approach these skin lesions? With befuddlement, with a frantic search of Up-to-Date articles, with an almost reflexive dermatology consult? Now there’s a point-of-care resource that promises to allow clinicians to generate a “visual differential diagnosis” for any skin condition we see. Here we review VisualDx Mobile from Logical Images, Inc, a “visual diagnostic decision support system”
First and foremost, with any point-of-care tool, reliability is key and in addition to all of these This app is from a reputed developer that employs over 100 practicing physicians on its editorial board to update its digital medical image collection, which numbers over 18,000 on this app. Logical Images, Inc (Rochester, NY) is a reputed medical technology company that has developed the world’s largest digital medical image library that includes over 60,000 images of visually presenting diseases (18,000 on this app). We previously featured a conversation with Dr. Art Papier, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Logical Images (posted March 4, 2010). As mentioned in this conversation, the NIH has awarded Dr. Papier a $2 million grant to develop a standardized lexicon for dermatology. Moreover, VisualDx boasts of customers such as the Military Health System, Delaware Division of Public Health, Wyoming Department of Health, and many more. Long story short – we trust them.
As for the app itself, it is rather intuitive to use: the home screen (shown above) features two functions, aptly named “Build a Differential” and “Find a Diagnosis.”
Visual Dx Mobile App: iPhone Medical App That Supercharges a Clinician’s Most Basic Tool – Our Eyes
This article is part of our HIMSS 2010 coverage. It includes a brief review of the iPhone medical app from Logial Images – Visual Dx Mobile – and a conversation with Dr. Art Papier, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Office of Logical Images.
Although an unimaginable array of technology was demonstrated in the hangar-like exhibition spaces at HIMSS, one of the most impressive uses of technology from a physician’s perspective was in a small booth in far off corner. In it, the voluble and passionate co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Logical Images (www.logicalimages.com), Dr. Art Papier demonstrated a web and mobile based application that magically produces a sequence of high quality diagnostic images in response to user queries. Since Dr. Papier is Associate Professor of Dermatology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, the application was originally dedicated to presenting high-quality images of dermatologic conditions.
