OsiriX
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.
Now Playing: Radiology Images from Your Hospital PACS on your iPad
The torrent of clinical information being made available on smartphones does not seem to be showing any signs of slowing. Merge Healthcare just announced March 1 an iPhone OS app, available for the iPad, that connects seamlessly with their eFilm workstation to make available patients’ studies as quickly as they are accessioned by the radiology technician. Many hospitals already use the eFilm Workstation for their radiologists to view studies stored on their hospital PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System). What this announcement means is that a physician who works at that hospital can also now immediately view those high resolution images on their iPad.
While other imaging applications for the iPad and iPhone exist, such as Osirix which we reviewed previously, the advantage here is that the communication between the PACS server and the the mobile device is maintained transparently and securely by servers at Merge. I can attest that connecting Osirix to an imaging server is challenging, mostly due to the arcane requirements of the DICOM standard’s “Query & Retreive” method of communication. In exchange for this simplicity, however, the app owner is charged a $24.99 monthly subscription fee, in addition to the $9.99 purchase price. Merge also notes that this app is not intended for diagnostic use, and seemingly to reinforce this status, they have left out any measurement tools such as distance and radio-density, available on the Osirix app.
OsiriX Medical App Puts a Small DICOM Workstation in Your Pocket [App Review]
One problem that has plagued physicians in specialties where imaging is important is how to describe a patient’s imaging findings to a colleague. Certainly, the radiologist’s report is helpful but sometimes it’s not enough. Particularly for surgeons and interventional radiologists, imaging findings are like a road map to a procedure. If you’ve ever given driving directions to an out of towner, you’ve seen the look of confusion overcoming their face as you desperately pile on landmarks hoping they don’t get lost. But, if you are a physician, how do you communicate the subtleties of abnormal anatomy without pictures? This review will discuss how this application helps put a legitimate image viewer in the palm of your hand via the iPhone Operating System.
