VisualDx Mobile for the iPad is now on the app store
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 the web and mobile applications, 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).
Airstrip Critical Care gets FDA approval and can begin deploying real-time iPhone monitoring to hospital ICUs
Airstrip Technologies produces several highly designed mobile applications for real time off-site monitoring of patients. It started with Airstrip OB, which allowed real-time fetal heartbeat monitoring on the iPhone. This remarkable app (iTunes) has two components, a server component installed by the hospital that can interface with the majority of hospital monitoring systems, and apps deployed to physicians’ iPhones. The hospital pays for the server unit, the apps are free. Airstrip technologies was previously highlighted on this site (video).
From the press release:
Cardiothoracic surgeon develops app to predict risk of heart surgery
[crossposted from iMedicalApps.com]
Dr. Edward Bender of Missouri has released five iPhone apps, all designed to assist patients and surgeons contemplating cardiac and thoracic procedures. His newest iPhone app, CTSNetWiki, gathers data from all the major cardiothoracic societies to allow patients and doctors to compute the risk of various heart surgeries.
In this interview with the South East Missourian, Dr. Bender remarked
If I’m talking to a patient and they want to know their chances of [surgical] complications, I can just whip this out and tell you how your case compares to the other four million in the database.
Dr. Bender said he’s working on a grant application to help with funding and to expand the business. While many app developers seek clinicians to help identify worthwhile clinical projects, there is a unique advantage to a physician who can play both roles. We look forward to seeing what Dr. Bender dreams of next. [St. Louis Business Journal]
Frog Dissector lets you see the insides of a frog while keeping your iPad clean
[cross-posted from iMedicalApps.com]
We could not miss the chance to highlight the first (we believe) animal dissection app for the iPad. Frog Dissector by Punflay shows you, in about a dozen quick steps, how to open up the abdomen and chest of a frog and see what the various organs are.
The app has already garnered the PETA Mark Twain Ethical Science award. We are not sure if this will start a new venue of competition among medical app developers but it certainly shows off the different ways in which medical education and a tablet device could converge.
Blio Reader promises a digital book revolution for every medical publisher (Part 2)
cross posted from iMedicalApps.com
From part 1 of this post:
Blio reader is a fascinating digital publication platform which appears poised to grow rapidly across multiple devices. Since medical textbooks are such a prime target for digital publishing, one can almost guarantee that Blio reader will be how a significant proportion of tomorrow’s medical students and health professionals will be reading.
In the last post, we reviewed the Blio business model and how it has strategically catered to the needs of book publishers as well as readers. In this post, we will review what we know about the technology behind Blio and how it can enhance digital textbooks to move closer towards their potential as a truly interactive teaching tool.
Layout preservation
Blio’s preferred submission format from publishers is PDF (Adobe’s “portable document format”). As readers are aware, this text document format precisely specifies the exact layout of columns and pages as well as the type and images. This immediately differentiates Blio reader content from Kindle or iPad iBooks in that the original published layout is preserved. Readers familiar with Kindle or iBooks know that the original pagination is lost. For volumes where layout is important, for example anatomy and pathology atlases, preserving the published layout will allow for a rich, colorful book like experience. However, the trade off is that reading multi-column text on small screens (such as an iPhone or Android phone) will be require repeatedly panning left and right as the Blio reader will not re-flow the text to accommodate smaller screen widths and heights.
Telemedicine does not have to be distant: how the iPhone 4 FaceTime feature can help your doctor
cross posted from iMedicalApps.com
The highlight of the recent Steve Jobs keynote where he unveiled iPhone 4 was the video telephony feature that Apple named FaceTime. This is classic Apple, taking an existing technology – video chat (think Skype) – and recasting it as a brand new invention.
Predictably, many commentators scoffed that FaceTime is nothing more than marketing fluff, rather than a real innovation. But, on the other hand, if one considers the implications of a zero-configuration feature that allows you to instantly share what you are seeing with a simple phone call, it may turn out to be quite profound – especially for medicine and the patient physician relationship.
Blio Reader promises a digital book revolution for every medical publisher (Part 1)
cross posted from iMedicalApps.com
Blio reader is a fascinating digital publication platform which appears poised to grow rapidly across multiple devices. Since medical textbooks are such a prime target for digital publishing, one can almost guarantee that Blio reader will be how a significant proportion of tomorrow’s medical students and health professionals will be reading.
For those not familiar with Blio, it was previewed on this site a little while ago, at a time when information on the product was scant and many other sites only were able to report on what was divulged on a few interviews or based on the product web site. Since then, more information has come to light that we are pleased to present here.
Test driving the iPad in the operating room
cross posted from www.imedicalapps.com
Recently, I tried out the iPad in the operating room. The big question was will the iPad will work in the sterile environment of the operating room ?
The short answer is yes !
A simple xray cassette sterile bag, ubiquitous in the OR, holds an iPad comfortably. Once the iPad is inserted in the plastic bag by the circulating nurse, the top of the bag is cut off, folded back and clamped with a hemostat (see above image). The iPad can now be safely brought into the sterile field.
Importantly, the iPad touchscreen works quite well through the plastic bag, even while wearing gloves. Somehow, the touch of the plastic bag itself against the glass screen registers as a valid touch. I had no problems navigating between and inside apps or with gestures such as pinch and zoom.
Radiation Passport helps physicians and patients determine cancer risk and cumulative radiation exposure in diagnostic imaging
This review is cross posted from iMedicalApps.com
Radiation Passport aims to fulfill an important need: to quantify the cancer risk for the various diagnostic imaging studies and to add up the cumulative exposure and cancer risk for one patient. The app makers explicitly invite lay persons to track their own cumulative dose (thus the monicker “passport”) but the design and vocabulary appear to be targeted more toward physicians.
While the diagnostic benefits of modern imaging techniques are easily appreciated, the risk of exposure to ionizing radiation is less well understood. This question has become more acute as recently published studies attempting to quantify cancer risk from diagnostic radiation were widely picked up by media outlets. I can attest that, in recent months, many of my patients have brought up this coverage when I ordered scans. At the same time, I have also decreased orders for CT scans and even x-rays in my pediatric patients.
Radiation Passport (iTunes link) was designed and built by a team of two brothers, one of whom is a radiologist – and is priced at $3.99. The application includes a well written “background” section which deals early-on with the vexing dilemma of calculating cancer risk – that much of of the data on cancer risk is extrapolated from atomic bomb data – by simply stating it is the best information available. Much of the background section of the app is drawn from an accompanying article in the Journal of American College of Radiology, in which the brothers describe the application’s methodology.
Open source software and the future of health IT: O’Reilly jumps in at its annual OSCon event
Kudos to Andy Oram of O’Reilly for organizing what promises to be a great introduction between the world of health IT and the open source software community. In his recent post , he summarizes his experience in building this first ever line-up of health IT software developers, vendors and regulators at the annual O’Reilly OsCon event.
As everybody knows, O’Reilly is highly respected technology publisher with deep roots in open source software. Its annual OsCon meeting is always well attended and, with the excitement this year around publication of meaningful use standards and HITECH stimulus money, this was an opportune time to get the open source community and software developers in general more directly engaged in building great products for health IT.
