Patient Communication
Apple squashes any hopes of flash based electronic health records on the iPhone or iPad
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:
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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.
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.
Merck Manual Home Edition Aims to Help Patients Communicate More Efficiently With Physicians [App Review]
Unlike many applications in the medical section of the App Store, Merck Manual is not made for medical professionals. Instead, the app is aimed at lay people with no healthcare experience. The app hopes to help these people understand medical knowledge easier. We were definitely fans of the Professional Edition, which we recently reviewed. The Professional Edition does a great job with synthesizing the information medical professionals need the most, and basically putting a medical encyclopedia in your hand. I liken the Professional Edition to a Medical Wikipedia, at least in terms of the pertinent content it contains and the feel. The user interface, navigation, and content are beautifully laid out in the Professional Edition, I was hoping to find the same features in the Home Edition as I was preparing for this review.
Medical Spanish App adds Audio in Latest Update, and We’re Definitely Smitten [App Review]
Medical Spanish, made by Batoul Apps, and available in the App Store for $6.99, just added audio to their top 25 medical app. As you can tell by the title, we’re definitely excited about the 2.0 version of this medical app. Some of the new features include audio for over 3,000 phrases, interactive bookmarking, a slightly different interface, and some new content. Did we mention there are over 3,000 phrases with audio now?
We reviewed Medical Spanish back in June and were definitely fans back then. The app even made our top 7 Medical apps list, coming in at #6. We’ll start the review by summarizing our last review, and then talking about the new features.
Blausen Human Atlas App Enhances Physician Patient Relationship [App Review]
By: Iltifat Husain, MD/MPH, MS4 and Yousif Alkadhi, MD
One of the toughest aspects of medicine is communicating medical conditions and procedures to patients who have limited medical knowledge through the use of only words. With clinic times becoming shortened, this communication is often under strain. The new 2.0 version of the Blausen Human Atlas application aims to help providers with this type of communication. This app allows medical professionals access to a vast library of 3D video animations and images that aid in explaining medical conditions to laypersons.
Medical Spanish (1.2) [App Review ]
We have an updated review of this application highlighting it’s new features. The review can be found here.
Medical Spanish is an app that helps you communicate with Spanish speaking patients in a health care setting. The app has a very detailed description in the App store, so I won’t get into the “nitty gritty”, but instead I’ll focus on the usefulness of the app. I’ll touch on this later, but you can use this app even if you do not know a single word of Spanish. (Scroll below after the conclusion section for a more detailed review of the App).
