iMedicalApps » ipad EMR

Dell offering deep discounts for physicians adopting electronic medical records

Iltifat Husain — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 08:59:18 +0000

With all the talk of the adoption towards electronic medical records (EMR) and questions about software choices – people tend to forget the hardware needed to run such records. Dell is trying their best to create as many partnerships as possible with EMR vendors and physicians hoping to adopt EMRs. Apple has also tried to foster these relationships, but compared to Dell its efforts have been significantly weaker.

Just recently Dell teamed up with Practice Fusion, an EMR vendor for small practices famous for marketing themselves as the fastest growing free electronic health record company – and are offering deep discounts through this partnership.

The partnership with Practice Fusion is by no means the first relationship with an EMR vendor for Dell. They have over 20 partnerships with electronic health vendors, ranging from Allscripts to Athena Health. Dell even has a dedicated number and email address for those who are interested in buying hardware for electronic health records: 1-866-Dell-EMR and Dell_EMR@Dell.com.

So exactly how deep are these discounts?

For the Practice Fusion partnership, Dell has listed the discounts on their website, and our assumption is these discounts are similar to what providers will find with other electronic health record systems for small practice. Even if the electronic health record vendor you are interested in does not have an existing relationship with Dell, you can most likely get this discount by calling the above number or using the above e-mail contact.

Practice Fusion actually has a page where they give you a list of “suggested hardware” – the suggestions are based on how large your practice is.

Most of the above configurations make sense, but the Limix digital cameras are probably not the best way to use your cash. The following are the discounts being offered by dell:

As you can see, they are naming their products as “EMR laptop” – not with their actual name. The “EMR Laptop” is actually a Vostro v13 lapop, while the EMR tablet is actually a Latitude XT. The discount on the laptop is only $164, but the “EMR tablet” has a whopping $1,408.00 discount. So, to be fair, Dell has definitely stretched this discount out. The base Latitude XT tablet costs $2,423, and while the “EMR tablet” has higher specs (processor, hard drive, etc) – the base model with a few extra features would provide sufficient computing.

Nevertheless, with the type of specs being offered in the special “EMR tablet”, you are still getting a pretty significant discount. Oh, and no where do you see specs for clinic specific use, such as special medical grade casing or related items.

Physicians are set to receive $18,000 of the $44,000 in ARRA reimbursements for electronic medical record adoption in the first year of use – but only if their medical record software meets “meaningful use” – metrics that are currently still being finalized. If you dish out over $2,000 for a tablet, you’ve already eaten over 10% of the reimbursement fund for the first year – and you still have to pay for the actual software and other necessary hardware tools.

It’s these steep prices that make the iPad actually compelling when it comes to using tablets in practice. Obviously, you’re missing certain levels of functionality that an iPad does not have and the above full featured Dell tablet does – but a recent electronic health record vendor we interviewed is actually designing exclusively for the iPad. It’ll be interesting to see if others will follow suit or if we’ll see prices for tablets fall for physicians hoping to adopt EMR technology.

Related Posts:

Apple is actively recruiting health care providers at their retail stores

Iltifat Husain — Thu, 06 May 2010 08:53:36 +0000

When I recently walked into my local Apple store to buy an iPad accessory, I saw a group of about 20 people huddled around a large LCD screen while an Apple employee was giving a workshop.

When I saw the LCD screen full of medical applications (picture on the left), I was shocked. This wasn’t your run of the mill “how to use your iPhone” workshop.

The people gathered for the workshop consisted of healthcare professionals in medicine, dentistry, and other fields. About a third of the group consisted of physicians.

The workshop was focused on how the iPhone and iPad can be useful for their practices and as reference tools for day to day work.

The workshop was led by an Apple employee who went through a slideshow presentation of useful medical applications, such as epocrates, iMurmur, Airstrips OB, and many of the other useful applications we’ve featured on iMedicalApps before.

Most of the apps we’ve listed in our “top 10 free iPhone medical apps” list were mentioned throughout the presentation. I was pleasantly surprised to see an in depth presentation on medical applications in the Apple Store – and I couldn’t help but feel the creators of the slideshow had been on our site before. Along with the presentation given by the Apple employee, a MacPractice representative was on hand to demonstrate their electronic health record and how it worked from the desktop to the iPhone and to the iPad [below picture].

It’s obvious when Apple first came out with the iPhone they saw potential in the medical industry. Apple worked closely with Epocrates to make sure it was one of the first applications for the iPhone, and it was even featured when the iPhone 2G was being unveiled. After this huge initial show of interest, Apple’s extent of reaching out to the medical community has been dedicating a little webspace to show how electronic health records and other tools can be implemented in practice, along with some videos of successful integration stories in hospitals and private practice.

If you go to the Apple webpage showing how their various platforms can be used in healthcare, you’ll see Apple linking six different electronic medical record companies [electronic medical records is synonymous with electronic health records]. These six different companies are: MacPractice, SpringCharts, ComChart, The Life Records, Practice Solutions, and PowerMed. These software developers share one thing in common – they cater more towards small practices and individual physicians – not hospitals. This makes sense since most hospitals use big time players, such as Siemens, when transitioning to electronic medical records.

It seems Apple is really trying to get more medical professionals to use their platforms and software when implementing health information technology. At first, I thought the driver to all this was the increasing popularity of the iPhone and iPod touch with medical professionals. But – after I talked to an Apple employee, they informed me the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is one of the main reasons why Apple is trying to promote its platform for electronic medical record use – and one of the main reasons for the workshops.

No doubt Apple believes the incentives offered to physicians by the above Act ($44,000 per physician) will lead to a significant increase in adoption rates. It appears Apple wants to leverage their good standing and popularity among health care providers into showing how health information technology on their platform can yield favorable and lucrative results.

At the end of the day, Apple sees an opportunity to capitalize on the potential of rapid adoption of electronic medical records and wants to show healthcare providers how the iPhone and iPad can be used for this type of technology – and after a long hiatus, they are actively recruiting health care providers -right within their own stores.

Related Posts:

How Apple’s Position on Flash Could Turn Many Medical Professionals Back to Android

Satish Misra, MD — Tue, 04 May 2010 02:22:12 +0000

Storm clouds continue to gather in the Apple-Adobe feud over Flash and recent reports suggest it could get even worse. Reports are surfacing that they Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are in discussions over opening an inquiry into the recent changes to the iPhone OS developer license agreement. As we discussed previously, these changes basically kill Flash on the iPhone OS, thus including both the iPhone and iPad. We’ve talked previously about our excitement over the numerous emerging web-based electronic health records such as CareCloud and Practice Fusion. With news from Adobe of plans to include a “Packager for iPhone” in the latest development kit, we were definitely excited that these electronic health records would be ready to go on the iPad. But it looks like those dreams have ended.

As the folks over at PC World are quick to point out, we are right now in the “rumor” stage that an inquiry – not a full scale investigation – may occur. Even so, Apple’s legal team is certainly revving up for a fight. But, at least when it comes to medicine, this is a fight they may be better of losing.

As Steve Jobs continues to rage against the Adobe machine, Google and the associated Android are very publicly embracing Flash and will be including Flash support in Android 2.2. This will allow access to everything from news content to the most inane of internet games, which some may argue is also important to medical professionals who are also regular people outside of the clinic and hospital. What is indisputable though is that many low-cost or even free web-baesd electronic health records will now be accessible via Android devices. Meanwhile, iPhone and iPad users will have to wait for healthcare IT vendors, whose EHR’s are generally either Windows or Flash-based, to develop apps specifically for them. And as the race for electronic health record adoption continues in light of the stimulus funds available for it, time is not on Apple’s side.

As physicians, especially those in smaller practices, look to adopt EHR’s, they will also look to adopt new devices on which to run them. Android devices will have an obvious advantage with web-based electronic health records thanks to Apple’s scuffle over Flash. What’s also interesting to note is the numerous emerging tablets that will also run Android. Glancing at the CES 2010 review of 10 tablets worth noting, by PC World, the majority will run Android. And with prices as low as $200 (if Freescale does in fact deliver on this promise), there will be a lot of choice in terms of cost as well. So for the physician looking to adopt a tablet, there will be a variety of choices to fit his or her needs.

Web-based EHR’s certainly carry a smaller market share than major players like Epic, Allscripts, and so on. They are, however, a dynamic platform with a lot of potential especially, from a cost and simplicity perspective, for the smaller physician practices. And as physicians deploy these systems and look for devices on which to run them, Android-devices are, for the most part, now the only game in town.

Related Posts:

The First Electronic Health Record Customized For The iPad Has Arrived [First Impressions]

Iltifat Husain — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 03:03:16 +0000

The iPad has been out for almost a month and we now have the first electronic medical record app customized to take advantage of its features. The Dr. Chrono EMR app is the first of its kind to hit the scenes. Technically, MacPractice has already put their electronic medical record on the iPad, but you need a VNC connection, and they don’t have a customized iPad app yet.

The Dr. Chrono EMR app enables you to sync your iPad with the online practice management platform provided on the Dr. Chrono website. The electronic health record produced by Dr. Chrono is intended for smaller practices, similar to the model Epocrates is takings with it EHR. On initial impressions, the app definitely has potential, but you can tell there are kinks that need to be worked out.

One of those kinks happens when you’re trying to open up the app. When you try to open up the app from landscape mode, you get a blank screen and the app closes out abruptly and you’re back on the home screen of your iPad. In order to open the app, you need to be in portait mode – which shouldn’t be a necessary requirement when using an application.

Once opened, you have three options. Buy the app, request a free trial, or you can view the application with sample data containing fake patients. These samples definitely give hints of impressive features the application possesses, such as dictation within the patient file to optimized billing and coding.

Once we get our hands on an actual review application we’ll let you know. Until then, we’ve included some screen shots of this EHR app doing a soap note, scheduling a follow up, and more.

Related Posts:

California Hospital ordering iPads for healthcare use

Iltifat Husain — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:01:55 +0000

One of the most important apps for healthcare providers might not be a medical app after all, rather a business app, called Citrix Receiver for iPad. This app allows your to have secure access to virtual desktops, applications, and data – those of you who have accessed your hospitals electronic health record when off campus are using this type of software. Hospital systems can use the Citrix app to access their own servers and desktops, as shown in the above video, and display key information on their iPad. The data can be accessed as long as you have a Wi-Fi or a 3G connection, allowing you to become mobile.

This app is one of the main reasons a Visalia, California hospital is ordering 100 iPads for its healthcare providers. The hospital system, The Kaweah Delta Health Care District, will use the iPads to view radiology images, ECG results, and other key results. They feel the iPad will be especially useful for their mobile healthcare workers, such as hospice and home health nurses. The above video also shows uses for the device within the hospital setting.

Nick Volosin, director of technical services, and the one in charge of implementing the iPads, makes it clear the iPad isn’t being used because of the “wow factor”. Rather, it makes fiscal and functional sense. The iPad’s battery is significantly longer than many of the laptops currently under use, and with the Citrix virtual desktop software, it can perform the key functions required for healthcare use.

He goes on to make the fiscal argument for the iPad: From a cost standpoint its significantly cheaper than other touch screen medical tablets, that can cost up to $3,000.

Battery life, cost, and ability to have a virtual desktop on the iPad appear to be the 3 key drivers of iPad implementation in healthcare right now. Many in healthcare will be watching this deployment of more than 100 iPads in the medical field and taking note.

Check out the following links for the rest of the story.

Sources: MacWorld, Network World

Related Posts:

New iPad Demographics Suggest the Medical iPad Could Be An Easier Sell to Healthcare Providers

Satish Misra, MD — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 23:45:39 +0000

The iPad is a pretty cool device, as you may have gathered from our healthcare perspective comprehensive review of it. And with the iPhone OS 4.0 bringing some new features to this powerful platform, the iPad certainly has a lot of things going for it.

In particular, the enterprise and security features of the new operating system will further lower the barriers to adoption of the iPad in healthcare. We could finally have a user-friendly and practical mobile device on which to the access radiology images, enter orders, educate patients, and so on – the beginnings of a revolution in healthcare workflow.

However, whether the iPad will overcome the biggest hurdle of all – adoption by a generally late-adopting profession – remains up in the air. But at least one report suggests that this may not be that much of a hurdle after all.

Chitika Research is reporting some pretty surprising information on the demographics of early adopters of the iPad. According to their study of just under 75,000 iPad sales they found that 50% of iPad adopters also have a Windows computer in their home. You may recall in prior posts on the iPad in healthcare, one of our biggest concerns was whether the iPad could thrive in a Windows-world. Aside from issues about compatibility with Windows-based electronic health records (which the iPhone OS 4.0 takes a step towards answering), there was also the comfort of end users to consider.

Considering the fact that Windows machine dominate the consumer PC market, would healthcare providers, the majority being Windows-users, be comfortable with an iPad? Such a high number of Windows adopters suggests they would be. I am aware simple statistics skew some of this data and that given the dominance of Windows, its only natural to expect a high percentage of iPad adopters would be Windows users. But this high of a percentage still seems significant to me and I am inclined to believe the iPad “form factor” has been sufficiently impressive to a number of Windows users who may have been otherwise hesitant to purchase a Mac product.

The other interesting feature of their research is the fact that less than 10% of the iPad adopters have iPhones. In previous posts, we talked about how the widespread adoption of the iPhone would be a significant factor in lowering the barrier to entry of the iPad into medicine. And while the iPhone has certainly established Apple as a market leader in mobile technology, it seems that its reputation has spread well beyond the actual users of its products. In short, despite not actually having an iPhone, which is arguably just a small iPad, consumers are sufficiently aware of the products, capabilities, and usability of this family of products. So there’s no reason to expect that non-iPhone users in healthcare would feel any differently.

All in all, this data is encouraging for the medical iPad. We certainly see a lot of opportunity in the device to find innovative new ways to practice medicine. And, based on the data here, it seems like a lot of other healthcare providers (who, on an individual basis, should be no different than general consumers) will agree – even if they’ve never used an iPhone or a Mac.

Related Posts:

Apple squashes any hopes of flash based electronic health records on the iPhone or iPad

Iltifat Husain — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:22:41 +0000

We posted an article a few weeks ago detailing how a form of Adobe’s flash player, the ubiquitous platform used to stream videos and play games, was coming to the iPhone operating system. We were excited about this because many electronic health record (EHR) vendors developing web-based (“Saas”) EHRs, including Practice Fusion, Hello Health, and Care Cloud have relied on Adobe Flash technology for portions of the user interface. [Check out our video of Care Cloud’s EHR in action – using flash]

But with the upcoming release of the Apple iPhone Operating System 4.0, the hopes of having some semblance of flash on Apple’s mobile platforms is gone.

Dr. Felasfa Wodajo, a senior writer on this site, explained the how and why on his blog:
*********************************************
While this may seem like a repeat story, there was actually a little jewel buried in the “terms of service” for developers adopting version 4 of the iPhone OS, as they discovered last week.

Specifically, the new agreement forbids applications developed in languages other than those used by Apple or using different development tools than Apple’s own Xcode from being deployed on the iPhone or iPad.

A post by John Gruber, titled “New iPhone Developer Agreement Bans the Use of Adobe’s Flash-to-iPhone Compiler” started the melée.

This immediately set off a furor on the internet as it squarely prohibits Adobe from releasing the much discussed Flash to iPhone translator – the software we mentioned a few weeks ago.

Amazingly, Steve Jobs himself responded to a disappointed developer’s email, endorsing Gruber’s speculation as to Apple’s rationale with a terse but pointed response:

We think John Gruber’s post is very insightful and not negative:
-Steve”

Basically, Apple’s position is that developer tools differing from Apple’s will lead to inferior products, and negatively alter their ecosystem and user experience. Understandably, developers chafe when told what tools they have to use for their craft.

While it is obvious requiring developers to use Apple tools helps keep applications from being made simultaneously available on multiple platforms and helps maintain Apple’s lead, I think this is a short-sighted understanding of the underlying strategy.

In just 12 months developers flocked to the iPhone platform in massive numbers – they can leave just as fast.

Apple has a very strong interest in controlling the manner in which applications are developed. They are very strict that any calls to the operating system (API’s) be made only according to published guidelines and they are miserly on transitioning “private” APIs to public.

In return, what Apple gets is the freedom to radically transform the platform underneath the applications – without the application base suddenly breaking apart. This is how, for example, they can bring in multitasking with only a minor ruffle to most apps or how they can reasonably claim 150k apps that worked on one device, the iPhone, will work on a brand new device, the iPad.

This is a major strategic asset, the effect of its absence can be seen on the windows platform where Microsoft has been shackled by its long tail of application incompatibilities, costing it years to make even evolutionary revisions to it’s operating system (see: Vista)

I am certainly disappointed that EHR vendors will not be quickly transitioning their Flash based user interfaces soon to my iPad. While much of the commentary has been based on catchy depictions of parking lot brawls between companies, it seems to me that each entity is more likely acting on its own long term strategic interests.

At the end of the day, EHR platforms utilizing flash will have to rethink their strategy if they want to have a presence on the iPhone or iPad. This is unfortunate because the flash based EHRs potential is to provide a seamless transition and functionality from the mobile to desktop experience.

Iltifat Husain contributed to this post

Related Posts:

iPad hands on review: Fits in your white coat and is fast enough for Medical point of care use [Healthcare Perspective]

Iltifat Husain — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 05:01:39 +0000

The iPad has finally been released and we’ve got our hands on one so we can provide the medical community a healthcare perspective of the device. I’ve been using the iPad for the last two days, and these are the initial impressions.

Fits in your white Coat:

The iPad should fit comfortably your white coat. If you continue on to the rest of the review you’ll see pictures of the iPad easily settling into my white coat, along with my stethoscope. Granted, my white coat has been thoroughly stretched out with mini medical reference books, papers, and medical devices, but even with a fresh white coat, you shouldn’t have problems tucking away your iPad.

For the iPad to be seriously used in the medical setting, this type of convenience is key. I can’t imagine carrying it around while I juggle patient notes and other necessities.

The iPad feels heavy in your hands(1.5 pounds), but is thin, measuring half an inch in depth. The ends of the iPad are tapered, making it feel significantly thinner. The heavy feel is almost welcome and assuring, it makes the iPad feel strong – making you feel like a drop, with a case on it, wouldn’t break it. This type of build quality is expected from an Apple device.

*note, the iPad can go deeper into the pockets of my coat, but I left a bit out for the sake of the picture.

Fast enough for Healthcare Point of Care Use

When Apple announced the iPad’s custom designed 1GHz Apple A4 processor, heads turned. The processors on previous versions of the iPhone were not custom designed by Apple in a similar fashion, but Apple wanted a chip that delivered high performance, while maxing out battery life.

Health care point of care use – using the device while seeing a patient, requires the ability to pull up key information quickly, or the physician patient experience suffers. I really can’t emphasize how fast the iPad is. Applications load faster than on an iPhone. Web-surfing on the iPad is faster than your run of the mill desktop or laptop. I compared the iPad web surfing experience (time to load a site) to a one year old macbook, and the iPad won every time. Plus, websites pull up in a similar fashion – you don’t have to deal with a mobile version of a website anymore.

Below are screen shots of how some medical reference sites, such as Epocrates and Access Medicine look on the iPad’s screen:

This is welcome news to electronic health vendors, whose software is often heavy on system resources. EMR vendors and medical app developers should have no problem making complex, feature rich software for the iPad.

Related Posts:

iPad customized medical apps already in the Apple App Store

Iltifat Husain — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 10:44:23 +0000

Developers for some of our favorite medical apps have been working at a fever pitch to have their apps utilize the extra functionality and screen space offered by the iPad. Just to be clear, all your iPhone medical apps will run on your iPad. But, some developers have made “iPad versions” of their medical apps. The following are some of our favorite medical apps that have done this conversion, and screenshots of how they have utilized the extra space and features afforded by the iPad.

Papers

We actually mentioned Papers in our recent “Top 5 medical apps for the upcoming iPad” post. This is a fantastic app for organizing your medical literature. You can basically store your whole medical literature library on this, and use native search engines to add to your collection. One of the most difficult things to do on the iPhone is to read PDFs – and when you’re in the medical professional, that’s essential.

So far, from screen shots we’ve seen of the the iPad version of this app, it looks extremely exciting. PDFs will obviously be significantly easier to read on the iPad platform – dare I say I’m really excited to read literature now because of the iPad?

Link: Papers iPhone Review
Price: $9.99

Grays Anatomy Premium

Gray’s Anatomy for the iPad doesn’t appear to utilize new menu screens or aesthetic features offered by the iPad. However, one of our biggest complaints when using this app on the iPhone was the difficulty in viewing some of the images with text. The images on the iPad will definitely look significantly nicer. Also, this app is for the iPad only, so if you have Grays Anatomy Deluxe for the iPhone you’ll have to purchase this separately. At a mere $1.99, it’s not going to set you back too much and a great buy for anatomy studying.

Link: Grays Anatomy iPhone Review
Price: $1.99

MD on Call

MD on Call has always been one of our favorite apps to use. It’s a simple application that contains essential information for medical students and residents on call. The iPad version of the app utilizes the extra screen space nicely to display algorithms in a more reader friendly fashion. Personally, I’d think the iPhone version of this app would be more useful at the point of care, but if you brought your iPad into the call room to read your medical texts, this might be useful.

Link: MD on Call iPhone Review
Price: $3.99

Nuance – Dragon Dictation

This isn’t the medical dictation app, but a preview of how the medical dictation software app will most likely look. When we spoke to Nuance recently, they told us to expect Mobile Medical Dragon Dictation to roll out in the late summer this year. We have video of the iPhone version of the app in action.

Link: Nuance – Dragon Dictation Hands on
Price: Free

Wikipanion

Technically this isn’t a medical app, but we recently crowned Wikipanion our favorite free Wikipedia app to use when searching for medical literature papers. The screen shots of this app in action on the iPad look fantastic.

Link: Wikipanion Review
Price: Free

Remember, other than Grays Anatomy Premium, if you’ve already bought the app via your iPhone or iPod Touch, you won’t need to purchase it again. When you use the iPad for these apps, the custom iPad versions should automatically load. Although these apps are exciting, we’re still on the hunt for a legitimate medical health record customized for the iPad.

Related Posts:

Apple iPad set to launch – What do you, Medical Professionals, think?

Iltifat Husain — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 16:43:25 +0000

The Apple iPad is set to launch, and right now, most of the early reviews of the product have been positive. The NY Times has a fantastic piece looking at the iPad from two angles – An everyday user verse a more technically inclined user, and both have differing opinions on the eventual success of the iPad.

But what about a medical professional or a medical student. From the reviews I’ve read so far, the screen is gorgeous and easy to read, further giving traction to the idea of medical e-books or radiology viewing on the iPad. We’ve also made clear that handwriting software for the iPad is a necessity if broad implementation in the medical field is a goal.

We’ll be getting our hands on an iPad soon so we can show you how some of our favorite iPhone medical apps perform on the new platform.

Until then, we’d like to hear from you. Will you be buying the iPad, why or why not? What additional features do you want to see on the iPad – and do you think it can help with medical education or enhance the patient physician relationship?

Related Posts:

The future of mobile medical technology – From iPhone dictation software to mobile ICU monitors – Summary of HIMSS 2010 [Video]

Iltifat Husain — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 01:05:26 +0000

If you’ve been following our site, you know the iMedicalApps Team was at HIMSS 2010 earlier this month, where we covered the conference in great detail.

Two of our senior writers, Dr. Wodajo, and Satish Misra, conducted interviews, wrote commentary, and captured great videos of actual medical applications in action – most of this mobile technology is yet to be released.

We rolled out posts at breakneck speed, sometimes twice a day, so we’ve compiled a “highlight reel” of the products we covered in case you missed something – from iPhone dictation software, real time ICU monitors, and soon to be released mobile electronic health records – there’s a bit for everyone.

Also, we can’t wait to see how some of these apps will look on the iPad.

Nuance Brings Medical Dictation and Search to your iPhone: Dragon Medical Mobile Apps [Video]

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. We have some great video of this soon to be released app in action.

Epocrates Dives into Electronic Health Record World

Epocrates made a big splash early in the conference by announcing an electronic health record product aimed at solo and small practices. The electronic health record will be a stand-alone app, along with having a web interface. Epocrates informed us they anticipate the product to achieve CCHIT certification — hopefully making it eligible for stimulus funds.

Turning your iPhone into a Portable ICU Monitor -– How AirStrip Technologies is Revolutionizing Mobile Health Care [Video]

Airstrip Technologies became hugely popular when they unveiled AirStrip OB a few years ago. This app enabled Ob/Gyn physicians to monitor real time fetal heart rates of women in labor via their iPhone. Now they are launching other apps, aimed at a broad set of physicians, such as AirStrip Cardiology, AirStrip Critical Care, and more.

Zynx Health Condenses Vast Amounts of Evidence Based Guidelines into Computerized Order Sets

Zynx Health has partnerships with many major electronic health record vendors and one of their main goals is to provide physicians with order sets that are entrenched in evidence based medicine.

Visual Dx Mobile App [Video]

Announced formally at HIMSS was the iPhone version of Visual Logic, appropriately named Visual Dx Mobile — an app that shows high quality diagnostic images in response to user queries, and does much more. The app contains over 18,000 images as well as text information such as next steps in management, diagnostic pearls, recommended tests, and ICD-9 codes. We have video of the app in action.

CareCloud’s Slick Web-Based Electronic Health Record Brings the Best of the Consumer Web to Medicine -– Interview with CEO Albert Santalo [Video]

A new web based electronic health record with a focus on cloud computing. Many in the healthcare IT world are excited about this electronic health record and its nice user interface, and we have video of the product in action.

Allscripts Remote iPhone App

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. This app is an electronic health record and an ePrescribing tool.

A Look Inside Kaiser Permanente’s Medical Tech Playground -– A Conversation with Dr. Yan Chow

We have a conversation with Dr. Yan Chow, and discuss Kaiser Permanente’s Health Care Information Technologies, and what we can expect from these innovators in the future.

*A special thanks to Dr. Wodajo for providing in depth coverage of HIMSS 2010. He is one of our senior writers and has a personal blog called a few thoughts from a tumor surgeon.

Related Posts:

Top 5 Medical Apps for the Upcoming iPad [Health Care Professionals Edition]

Satish Misra, MD — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:20:30 +0000

Apple has made it clear that current iPhone apps will run on the iPad. For many of the medical apps we’ve reviewed, its welcome news, but it won’t make the user experience of these apps any different. However, there are a few medical apps currently on the iPhone whose user experience should be greatly enhanced by the iPad’s 9.7 inch 1024 x 768 pixel display.

The following are the top 5 medical apps we’re excited to see in action on the iPad. This list is focused for health care professionals, and stay tuned for another list for medical students.

(1) Blausen Human Atlas – When I think of the iPad in medicine, this app embodies one area in which the iPad could shine. The Blausen Human Atlas includes 3D figures of human anatomy, an expansive medical glossary, over 1,000 still images, and a library of videos explaining common medical conditions like GERD and osteoarthritis.

Basically, everything in this app is designed with the goal of improving patient-physician communication. A provider who is trying to explain cholecystitis to a patient could access videos that explain the disease, still images to clarify any confusing points, and even 3D figures of GI anatomy to explain the corrective surgery. The app performs admirably on the iPhone’s 3.5 inch display, but on a display more than twice this size – the iPad’s – it should shine.

Links: Blausen Human Atlas App Review
[iTunes Link]

(2) Visual Dx Mobile – This recently released app aims to be much more than a reference tool for dermatologic disease, aiming to be a point-of-care decision support tool when it comes to skin lesions. Perhaps I’m partial to it because rashes are the bane of my existence, but this app condenses an enormous library of information into a novel format – the “visual differential diagnosis.” And that is what I would love to see on the iPad – large, high-resolution images that would help me distinguish herpes zoster from dermatitis herpetiformis or chancroid from LGV.

Or, similar to the Blausen Human Atlas app, I could use the “Find a Diagnosis” function and use the information and images for melanoma to show a high-risk patient what he or she needs to be looking for. Again, the interactive and fluid user interface could only help enhance the communication between myself and my patients.

Links: Visual Dx Mobile App Review
[iTunes Link]

(3) Procedures Consult from Modality, are a series of apps that provide the user with extensive information on a number of procedures. With apps geared towards Internal Medicine, Family Practice, Ob/Gyn, and a number of other specialties, this family of apps has something for most specialties.

The highlights of these apps are the fantastic video tutorials complete with a narrator, interspersed still images to highlight key learning points, and integrated “clinical pearls.” There are even post-procedure videos that highlight things like how to submit pleural fluid to the lab.

The Procedures Consult series was clearly designed with the learner in mind. And as good as these videos are on the iPhone, they will be even better on the iPad – I can’t stress enough how helpful it will be to see, say, an LP on the iPad screen vs. the iPhone screen. And another big plus for these apps is that all videos are stored locally on your device, a crucial feature in the hospital or even rural clinics where internet access may be iffy.

Links: Procedures Consult – Internal Medicine review, Procedures Consult – Family Medicine review, Procedures Consult – Musculoskeletal review
iTunes Links: Internal Medicine Procedures, Musculoskeletal Procedures, Family Medicine Procedures

(4) OsiriX or eFilm – When the iPhone first came out, the image that most blew me away was the display of radiology imaging on a phone. These are the apps that make it happen and its probably not a surprise to anyone to see them on the list. The ability to access the brain MRI, ordered to rule-out a stroke from my call room at 3am (saving me a trip to a radiology viewing station), sounds great.

To view them on the beautiful high-resolution screen of the iPad will be even better. And the capacitive touch screen means I can manipulate these images and, hopefully soon, even annotate them or send messages to the radiologist asking about a strange incidental finding.

Last year OsiriX was used in a study to accurately diagnose acute appendicitis using the iPhone – showing huge potential for these apps.

Links: OsiriX App Review
[iTunes Link]

(5) Papers – This award winning medical app allows you to easily view research papers, and allows your to put all of your literature into mobile form. One of the biggest knocks on the iPhone is how its difficult to read pdf files due to limitations of screen size. The Papers app does a remarkable job of optimizing PDF viewing capability on the iPhone, and this same functionality will only enhance the user experience on the iPad.

Links: Papers App Review
[iTunes Link]

Other Noteable Medical apps worth mentioning:

*Merck Manual Professional Edition

*Epocrates Electronic Health Record

Iltifat Husain contributed to this post

Related Posts:

Five iPad Accessories for Health Care Professionals

Iltifat Husain — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:22:25 +0000

It’s fair to say almost everyone has bought at least one accessory for their iPhone. My own collection consists of two items, a simple protective case, and protective case with a built in battery. I can’t emphasize how crucial my battery case has been, especially when I hit the 20th hour of a 30 hour on call shift and my iPhone’s native battery is about to die.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the development of iPad accessories, and how companies such as Griffin, Gelaskins, Sanho, and others are scrambling to manufacture products as fast as possible. Time is money in the accessory business, and the iPod/iPhone accessory business is big money — totaling 3.7 billion in 2009 alone.

Medical app developers have already mentioned how they will be customizing their products for the iPad. Epocrates and Macpractice are examples of two significant players who have already committed to the iPad platform — and there are more.

With that said, there’s no doubt some health care professionals will be using an iPad, whether for reading medical books or for EMR purposes. So then two key questions come to mind: What accessories do we want to see and whats already out there? The following are 5 key accessories:

1) Stylus

The iPad has a capacitive touch screen, similar to the iPhone, requiring the natural conduction ability of your body to register movement. If you have gloves on, your fingers lose their “conductive” ability, and a capacitive touch screen is your worst nightmare — you cant do anything.

To remedy this, a stylus is needed. Luckily, there’s already one available for the iPhone, called the Pogo Sketch. Since the iPhone and iPad both have similar capacitive touch screens, this stylus should work just fine with the iPad. Now if only the rumors of the iPad having a handwriting style keyboard come to be true…

2) Medical Grade Case

If you’re using your iPad with gloves, you better have a medical grade case as well. Many health care IT folk have complained the iPad could pose problems in the medical setting because it’s not “industrial” enough, and could be hard to disinfect. The solution to this is simple, develop a case that solves these issues and make sure it meets the requirements to be used in medicine.

3) Battery Case

One of my favorite iPhone accessories is my battery case(pictured below) that extends my iPhone’s battery by about 50% — helpful on those 30 hour shifts. Why not bring the same type of battery case to the iPad? Proportionally, the iPad is similar to the iPhone’s dimensions, and designing a bigger battery case for the iPad couldn’t be that hard.

The extra portable battery life would be especially key for health care providers who would be using the iPad for patient interactions.

4) External Camera and Video recording adapters

There are plenty of rumors swirling about the iPad and how its been built with the intention of having a camera and video recorder, but until this functionality is tangible, we’re hoping a 3rd party developer can step up to the plate and deliver on the goods. Granted, they’ll need permission from Apple to connect the hardware directly to the iPad — and that’s no easy task.

5) VGA / AV out adapter

It would be great to show patients interesting medical videos you might have on a bigger screen, such as video from the Blausen Human Atlas app. Also, if the #4 feature mentioned above comes to fruition, you could easily show pictures or videos of interesting pathologies on a big screen. Key for grand rounds or any other large gathering.

So there you have it, 5 accessories health care providers who plan to use the iPad in practice are sure to appreciate. I’m sure there are other accessories as well, and if any come to your mind make sure to let the us know in the below comments section.

Update: One of our commenters did an great job of explaining that the iPad will be shipping with the option to have the #5 accessory — awesome. Now if the #4 accessory mentioned, an external camera/video recorder is there, than having VGA/AV capability would be even more useful.

Related Posts:

iPad could support “Handwriting Keyboard” – A requirement for medical point of care use in health care

Iltifat Husain — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:35:28 +0000

Ever tried using your iPhone medical apps with gloves? Doesn’t work too well. Although, if you’ve got gloves on you probably shouldn’t be using your iPhone anyways. The iPad is being touted by many, including us, as a device that could be used with patients at the point of care. Translation: Could be used in hospital rooms and procedure rooms that require you to be gloved up.

Since the iPad has a capacitive touch screen your gloves won’t work, and that plastic stylus from your old Palm PDA won’t work either. There’s a solution to this, the Pogo Sketch, featured in the picture.

The Pogo Sketch becomes an extension of your fingers and works on a capacitive touch screen. No longer making the iPad or your iPhone inoperable when you have gloves on. But what if you have to type information on the iPad or the iPhone? Since your gloved fingers won’t work, using a stylus to peck each letter on the pop up keyboard would be a huge ordeal.

To counter this, iPhone OS version 3.2, the operating system that will be running on the iPad, is rumored to have support for a “handwriting keyboard”, via Engadget.

….and, most interestingly, prototype support for a “handwriting keyboard.” Maybe we’ll see some stylus action on this thing after all.

The above revelation would be significant for the medical community, especially for health care providers who need the ability to write text efficiently with gloved hands or while standing up. I can imagine myself using this capability to type short notes or even prescriptions for patients while in a standing position in the hospital room. The alternative would be to use the external keyboard connected to the iPad, definitely more cumbersome, and this would require you to sit down and have desk space. And as most know, desk space isn’t exactly present in a hospital room.

I’m assuming Apple will not reserve this type of functionality for just the iPad, and will bring it to the iPhone and iPod Touch devices as well. If they want to make waves in healthcare IT, they would be wise to.

Related Posts: