By now many have heard the amazing story of how Dan Woolley, a Colorado man in Haiti, used the Pocket First Aid & CPR app to help survive severe injuries he sustained in the earthquake.  We highlighted this story last week when it broke, and we’ve always thought Pocket First Aid & CPR was a great app when it was first introduced in the summer of last year, and we even wrote about it back then.

At that time we put it in our “Apps for Patients” category not only because of the useful information it provides, but because it’s backed by the American Heart Association, the organization that sets the standard of care on first aid procedures. This app review will focus on the features of the app that helped Dan Woolley survive the injuries he sustained during the earthquake.

Some background on Dan Woolley’s story per CNN:

“I had an app that had pre-downloaded all this information about treating wounds. So I looked up excessive bleeding and I looked up compound fracture,” Woolley told CNN.

The application on his iPhone is filled with information about first aid and CPR from the American Heart Association. “So I knew I wasn’t making mistakes,” Woolley said. “That gave me confidence to treat my wounds properly.”

Trapped in the ruins of the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, he used his shirt to bandage his leg, and tied his belt around the wound. To stop the bleeding on his head, he firmly pressed a sock to it.

Navigation:

When you open the app you’re presented with a screen that shows you acute conditions.  This isn’t a long list, and the app covers the most common acute conditions someone would encounter, such as CPR, choking, burns, and more.  There’s also a tab to input your personal medical information, where you can enter medications, blood type, emergency contacts, physicians, allergies, and insurance information.

The overall user interface of the app is clean and simple, and could possible be used in acute settings.  The text information usually doesn’t take up more space than the screen of the iPhone.  The information is short, concise, and to the point.  The app also contains pictures and videos.  This multimedia will take up a healthy 80.5 MB of space on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Dan Woolley used this app to treat a compound fracture he suffered to his leg.  He most likely went to the “Bone, Joint and Muscles” section, then chose the “Sprains and Fractures” option.  After clicking through two pages of basic information, you’re shown a page with red hyperlinks.  These hyperlinks will guide you to key information if it pertains to you.

For his example, the two key hyperlinks are “signs of shock”, and “open wound”.  The open wound section takes you to a page containing quick hitting measures you should perform if you’re bleeding.  There’s also a great video showing you how to to stop the bleeding.

What I liked about this app:

• This app was made in conjunction with the American Heart Association(AHA), the venerable organization in charge of coming up with the standard of care for CPR and other acute health issues.  Those of us in the medical field get our ACLS training through the AHA as well.
• Nice user interface, application is easy to navigate and aesthetically pleasing.
• Depending on comfort of use, could be used in acute setting.
• Pictures and Videos are very useful.

What I didn’t like so much and improvements that could be made:

• Don’t see the point of the personal health information section.  Granted, this is optional, but without a security lock on the phone anyone could have your key personal health information if your phone gets lost.  Obviously, putting a lock on this info would render the feature useless, but I don’t think many emergency departments (ER) will be going through your phone looking for your First Aid app.



• Would have liked to see more pictures and videos.  When we’re taught ACLS in the medical field we get a chance to see the great breath of multimedia the AHA has on acute care training.  Granted, additional multimedia would have made the application size, 80.5 MB, larger.

Conclusion:

If you want an app that you could possibly use in acute health situations, Pocket First Aid & CPR is the one to have.  You never know when such an app can be useful, as seen with this app’s remarkable use in Haiti.

The best part of this app is it’s backed by the American Heart Association.  The App Store doesn’t have any medical standards when it comes to healthcare or medical apps, resulting in a litany of poorly made applications with inaccurate content.  Going with the trusted American Heart Association makes having the Pocket First Aid & CPR app even easier.

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Additional Pictures:

There was a fascinating interview on the Today show of Don Woolley, an American filmmaker in Haiti who used his iPhone to help him survive the massive earthquake.

….Woolley had taken refuge in an elevator shaft, where he used an iPhone first-aid app to treat a compound fracture of his leg and a cut on his head. He had already used his digital SLR camera’s focusing light to illuminate his surroundings, and taken pictures of the wreckage to help find a safe place to wait to be rescued — or to die.

….Thanks to the iPhone first-aid app he’d downloaded, he knew how to fashion a bandage and tourniquet for his leg and to stop the bleeding from his head wound. The app also warned him not to fall asleep if he felt he was going into shock, so he set his cell phone’s alarm clock to go off every 20 minutes.

There hasn’t been any news of the actual medical application he used, and it’ll be interesting to find out in the future.  My immediate guess would be Merck Manual – Home Edition, they have a great explanation on how to treat compound fractures, but there are other first aid applications out there as well.

As international relief efforts ramp up in Haiti, we are reminded of how fragile society is in many parts of the world. With shanty towns scattered around Port-au-Prince, a health and public services infrastructure devastated by years of natural and human disasters, and a centralized leadership that was only recently beginning to establish legitimacy, the earthquake in Haiti has created a public health crisis of the worst kind. And as we as a global community respond to this tragedy, its worth considering what lessons we can take away from it so that when disaster strikes again, we will be even more prepared. And with that, maybe it’s time we consider how we can actively leverage platforms like Twitter and Facebook to save lives in disaster zones.

Before proceeding any further, I’d like to remind folks that money is the most valuable assistance that most of us can provide right now. While it may feel a bit impersonal, adequate funds allow groups that are on the ground like Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross to purchase large volumes of essential supplies without worrying about the shipping costs associated with domestic material donations. Here at iMedicalApps, you can probably guess our favorite method of donating is via text message – for more information, check out this article from the New York Times. You can also donate directly to to the American Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, and Save the Children – these are just three large humanitarian organizations with extensive experience in Haiti with relief operations underway.

As the crisis continues to unfold, one thing that has become clear is that mobile technology, particularly via internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter, have again emerged as crucial forms of communication. As CNN describes, Twitter and Facebook have long been powerful ways to spread the word about a range of topics, even giving rise to the notion of “slacktivism” (think of all the Facebook groups dedicated to Darfur but with no discernible activity besides a few posts on the message board). In this current crisis, news outlets are reporting that in many cases Facebook, Twitter, and blog sites have been the sole method of communication for people seeking to share news or request help.

In a nation where the command and control infrastructure has been devastated, a management infrastructure will be critical to saving lives. Take Doctors Without Borders, who will be deploying a number of inflatable hospitals after all of their hospitals in Haiti were destroyed. Where should those hospitals go, how will resources be distributed once they are in place, what about all the make-shift triage centers that will function where the hospitals aren’t – this is an effort to build a public health system from scratch.

If we imagine Twitter as a communications tree, it’s not hard to imagine establishing follower relationships that line up with an organizational hierarchy and various workflows in such a system. For example, consider trying to manage a distribution network for antibiotics across multiple NGO’s throughout the country. Perhaps a Red Cross central supply manager would be followed by various regional rescuers from different organizations, who would then be notified as antibiotic supplies become available. Or in reverse, perhaps the central supply manager becomes a follower for field rescuers, civilians, and anyone else willing to share information on local needs. We could also imagine similar uses for Facebook. For example, initial rescuers in each town, village, or city district could use a Facebook page to post regular updates on needs, deaths, and other essential information. Then if Doctors without Borders was in one village but the Red Cross in another, they could more effectively share information and resources because these platforms can be easily accessed by both and in a sense are “standardized”.

Now, I know this is all grossly simplified.  I can hardly even begin to imagine what its like on the ground right now, but mobile technology is one of the main reasons why we’re even getting a glimpse of the current situation.  Having spent quite a bit of time in a very large hospital, I can tell you that effective management of any healthcare setting or system is critical – being able to put the right people with the right tools in the right place at the right time is something we take for granted because it happens so easily because of the strong infrastructure in place.  After a disaster of such high magnitude, strong leadership based on effective communications and information management will undoubtedly be the difference between life and death for many. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have proven their resilience in times of civil upheaval, natural disaster, and intentional political censorship. So maybe its time we begin thinking about how we can integrate them into disaster management so the next time something terrible strikes, we’ll be just a little better prepared.