Sometimes after a surgical procedure surgeons will leave a drain in place to help prevent infection or for other clinical indications. Most patients will tell you having a drain coming out of their body isn’t easy to handle. They have to be secured, maintained and emptied regularly.

This could last for days, weeks or even months depending on the circumstances. Knowing the output of a drain can help the surgeon determine if the output is too high and if further investigation is needed or if the output is decreasing and the drain can be removed.

For example sometimes after a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, if the gallbladder was infected the surgeon may leave a Jackson-Pratt (JP) drain to drain excess fluid and decompress.

Patients are often asked to maintain a record of the daily output from these drains and provide this information at follow up visits.  This can be hard with one drain, let alone cases where there are multiple drains a patient is managing.  The Drain IQ app by Golem Health and developed by a plastic surgery resident aims to make it easier for patients to quickly and accurately record various drain outputs and share results with providers if needed.

Video Review

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Evidence based medicine

None

What Patients would benefit from the Drain IQ medical app?

Any surgery patients with a drain would benefit from using this medical app

  • Price
    • Free on iTunes; Unavailable on Google Play store
    • Free
    • Large clear fonts
    • Very easy to use
  • Dislikes
    • Unavailable on android
  • Overall

    Drain IQ is a very good medical app that makes it easy for surgery patients to maintain an accurate record of drain output. 

  • Overall Score
  • User Interface
  • Multimedia Usage
  • Price
  • Real World Applicability
  • Device Used For Review

    iPad 2

  • Available for DownloadiPhoneiPad