One of the better examples of a mobile medical app that provides useful point-of-care information is VisualDx Mobile. This iPhone application (iTunes link) is powered by a rich database of high quality, carefully tagged images of dermatological conditions that can be efficiently searched by one or multiple keywords.
To learn more about the app, check out our iMedicalApps review here . To get a glimpse of the design philosophy behind VisualDx, check out our interview with the CMIO of Logical Images, Art Papier, MD.
The quality of the images and reliance on visual to make a diagnosis made the iPhone app a natural fit for the iPad. In fact, we had predicted the potential shortly after the iPad was announced and had counted VisualDx as on of the Top 5 iPad medical apps that we were eagerly awaiting.
The wait is over and the iPad version of Visual Dx is now available in the App Store (iTunes link). While we are excited to use the app in actual clinical settings, our first impressions are that the features that made the iPhone app are well preserved on the iPad and, as expected, viewing images on the larger iPad screen is clearly far more satisfying. Searching by diagnosis or clinical features remains simple and the split-screen format makes this even more intuitive.
The developer is further sweetening the deal by offering free “Drug Eruptions” content on download of the app, which they described as having:
over 1,500 images of nearly 100 conditions induced by medications as well as diagnoses that are often mistaken for drug eruptions”. With patients over the age of 75 taking an average of 7.9 medications per day (American Pharmacists Association) and adverse drug events causing over 700,000 emergency department visits each year (CDC), we believe this content will be of great value to clinicians.
For doctors and others clinicians who are occasionally baffled by their patients’ dermatological conditions (i.e., every non-dermatologist), we encourage you to check out Visual Dx Mobile for the iPad and iPhone.
