Modality
Top 5 Medical Apps for the Upcoming iPad [Health Care Professionals Edition]
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.
Procedures Consult: Family Medicine App aimed at Primary Care Providers [App Review]
By Dr. Jessica Otte
In early January, Elsevier and Modality released a new addition to their suite of popular iPhone medical apps. It is a true multimedia offering, combining text and video to explain the pre-procedure considerations, the technique and positioning to perform the procedure, and the complications and other advertisements for follow-up care. Overall, 27 different procedures are covered; these range from the basic (catheterization and wart treatment) to the more involved (lumbar puncture).
Being a resident physician, I am competent with some of these techniques to the extent that I can perform them by feel. Some, like circumcision, I’ve never seen, let alone performed. Fortunately, Procedures Consult provides a foundation for each. As I’ve mentioned in other reviews of procedure-teaching apps, there is no substitute for hands on experience under the guidance of an expert. However, applications like these may allow you to skip the ‘see one’ stage of the common ‘see one,’ ‘do one,’ ‘teach one’ approach to developing a skill.
Procedures – Hospital Collection App: 15 Procedures Taught With Extensive Multimedia [App Review and Comparison]
Learning a new skill can be an intimidating task for budding health care professionals – especially when it comes to learning medical procedures. There is a difference, any doctor will tell you, between reading about a procedure and actually doing it. Educators are beginning to take full advantage of new technology – like the iPhone/iPod – to help bridge the gap between comprehending and performing medical procedures.
Procedures – Hospital Collection is a new app that uses bulleted text, clinical images, and audio/video instruction to familiarize the learner with the preparation, relevant anatomy, and individual steps of common procedures in the hospital setting.
This app is not the first we have reviewed that offers instruction on performing routine hospital-based procedures. In many ways, Procedures – Hospital Collection is like the more expensive Procedures Consult – Internal Medicine App in its content.
So… how does it stack up to Procedures consult? In this post we’ll do a full review of Procedures – Hospital collection, and use the Procedure Consult series as comparison
Anatomy Apps: Clemente’s, Rohen’s, and Moore’s Anatomy Flash Card Apps: Similar User Interface, but Different Images, Could Be Used for Patient Education on the iPad [App Review]
The iPad has created a great deal of buzz in the tech community. The medical and healthcare community at large are set to benefit from some of its key features, mentioned in our prior posting. One of these key features, the beautiful 1024 by 768 pixel, 9.7 inch screen, is set to change the overall user experience for medical apps that have a focus on imaging, such as anatomy applications. Although this medical app review was done using an iPod Touch, we can only imagine how much more aesthetically pleasing the iPad’s experience will be. As will be discussed later in the post, these applications are a perfect example of how the upcoming iPad could be used in the clinic setting to improve patient education.
A key thing to remember is your iPhone medical apps will run just fine on the iPad. This post will review a trio of Modality’s latest anatomy flash card apps and provide extensive pictures of the following: Clemente’s Anatomy, Rohen’s Photographic Anatomy, and Moore’s Clinical Anatomy.
Nexus One and the Android Family vs. the iPhone: What’s the Medical Professional To Do?
The momentum and enthusiasm in the mobile technology world is, these days, clearly with Google. The question for many people is whether to go with the reigning champion of the mobile device world(arguably Apple) or to take a chance on the challenger. The Nexus One, the flagship of the Android family of mobile devices, was unveiled to much fanfare in advance of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The veritable King Midas of the online world had finally decided to take on its equally successful counterpart in the consumer electronics world. In the middle of this battle of the corporate titans, what’s the medical professional to do?
Campbell’s Operative Orthopedics App for the iPhone: What Every Orthopedic Surgeon Wants [App Review]
Campbell’s Operative Orthopedics is a cornerstone of any orthopedic surgeon’s library. It’s one of the few volumes that every resident knows he or she will have to own – no point complaining about the price. If a junior resident shows up to do a case and has not at least read the requisite chapter in Campbell’s, then they should be prepared to go no further than a few hours of holding retractors for the attending and making idle chit-chat.
So, the arrival of an iPhone version of this four volume tome is certainly an important milestone. How did they do? This full review will explain.
Procedures Consult – Musculoskeletal App Superbly Demonstrates Common Bedside Orthopedic Techniques [App Review]
If one wanted to get an idea of the potential of the iPhone as a tool for bedside medical and surgical education, this application by Modality and Elsevier would be a good starting place to get inspired. While it seems obvious that a portable device with a great user interface, a sophisticated operating system and great multimedia features should be a shoe-in for portable medical education, what is equally true is that the critical ingredient remains great instructional content.
“Procedures Consult: Internal Medicine – Musculoskeletal” brings together a highly detailed review of orthopedic bedside procedures, such as aspiration of small and large joints, splint application and reduction of joint dislocations, with a well crafted user interface to create an application that will genuinely be useful for emergency room physicians and junior orthopedic residents. This review will cover how this medical application for the iPhone and iPod Touch goes about teaching these procedures.
Procedures – Subclavian Line App Helps Teach You Key Procedure [App Review]
Procedure apps appear to be all the rage lately in the mobile medical world, and rightfully so. These instructional apps are a valuable resource to those learning how to do procedures in the health care world. We reviewed another Procedures app recently, Procedures Consult-Internal Medicine, that covers a wide variety of procedures. However, this app focuses on one specific procedure, and is a fraction of the cost.
Procedures – Subclavian Line, is a $2.99 app produced by MeisterMed. You might remember one of our previous reviews on a MeisterMed app, PediDoser. We weren’t huge fans of that app (although to their credit, PediDoser has a 3.5 star rating in the App Store). Nonetheless, once I tried out this current app for this review I was definitely impressed.
Modality’s You-Tube Video of Their USMLE Question Banks Apps
Modality develops a few different types of USMLE Q-Banks for the iPhone. They have a nice You-tube video where you can see these Q-banks in action. If you want an in depth review of the Lange Q-banks Modality has to offer check out our review from earlier in the week.
