By Ravi Nerella, MBBS, MD
As a hospitalist I am always looking for and interested in apps that focus on hospital medicine. I was especially excited about the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) app by Wiley-Blackwell and the possibility of having access to these resources on the go.
The Society of Hospital Medicine (for those who may not be aware) has two publications. The first, Journal of Hospital Medicine is a peer review original research journal that is only available to members of the society.
The second, The Hospitalist is a free news magazine and is available to any qualified healthcare professional by subscription. Wiley-Blackwell, the publishers of these two resources, have an app for the iPad and iPhone to make these resources available in an electronic format.
Layout
The app launches either in portrait or landscape mode based on the orientation of the device. In portrait mode the Categories menu automatically launches on the left hand side. Along the top there are four icons: Menu, Font size, Save, Share and Settings. The app has a simple and user friendly interface. At the bottom of the screen is a colorful banner that allows users to get more information about Wiley’s other journal apps and medical education book apps or to sign up for emails in your specialty.
Categories Menu
There are five categories listed: Journal of Hospital Medicine (JHM), The Hospitalists, Events, About, and Saved. Within a category, you are then presented with a table of contents for the respective category. The JHM on the app has access only to abstracts. Because The Hospitalist is free, the user has access to full articles. Events lists the dates and locations of upcoming hospital medicine events. About gives the user instructions on how to use the app and its functionality. It also gives the user information about JHM and The Hospitalist, the Society of Hospital Medicine and Wiley-Blackwell.
Settings
User given options to login into Twitter or Facebook accounts, leave feedback or contact support.
Navigation
Navigation through the app can be done either via the categories menu or by swiping from article to article. Changing between categories is done only by
the categories menu. When viewing an abstract, the user has the ability to use the share icon to launch a browser window to get access to the full article (discussed in detail below). At the end of each article the user is also given options to share the article via email, Facebook or Twitter.
User experience
As previously stated, the app has a simple layout and is easy to use. Beyond that, the experience is fair at best. The app has several major flaws that
need to be addressed before the app will be widely used and embraced by the members of the society or other healthcare professionals interested in
hospital medicine.
Flaws
- The Categories panel when in portrait mode, does not consistently automatically hide when an article or topic is selected and is very buggy.
- Swiping is not smooth or consistent and the user has to swipe several times to move to the next article or topic.
- The inability to verify membership credentials with the Society of Hospital Medicine and be able to access the full article is a serious draw back. The app will launch a browser window via the Share icon which takes the user to Wiley’s online library webpage to login, which mitigates this flaw only slightly.
- Short articles in the Hospitalist are listed consecutively on the same screen, but there is no clear delineation where one article ends and another begins and tends to be confusing.
- The articles and topics do not have any associated images that are present in the print version of the Hospitalist and so lends to a dull and uninviting experience and gives the app an overall drab appearance.
- Every time the user navigates to another article the advertisement bannerspins and is very annoying and distracting. The banner takes the user to the same screen even though it states “Sign up for emails in your specialty” or “Want more Wiley iPhone apps?”, yet there is no option to sign up.
- Triangle bullet icons with shadows in the categories pane with no aesthetic value.
The “How to use this apps” documentation section states
“Although typical research papers include information that is impractical to deliver (or read) on mobile devices, the App does allow you to click through to complete research papers on Wiley Online Library if you have a subscription that allows access to the content.”
I do not believe this statement is completely accurate. The impracticality of reading research papers on the iPhone is valid, but not with the iPad, given its processors, the ability to view PDF documents, and its larger screen size.
Conclusion
The question that Wiley needs to answer is what do they want this app to be? If it is just going to be an app that meets the adage “There’s an app for that” then it has met that goal. As tablets and smartphones become more powerful and continue to gain capabilities to view large documents and are also becoming increasingly prevalent in everyday life, users will expect the ability to have quick access to resources they expect from an app such as this. Wiley could be left behind in the world of ever improving and increasing apps in the medical world if they cannot meet users expectations.
I was very excited to have the ability to access two important resources as a hospitalist. Unfortunately the app meets that expectation only in part. It needs to be refined more before it will be widely accepted as an alternative access to these important resources, especially to those who practice hospital medicine.
