To p 10 free ipad Medical Apps

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1 As the Editor in chief of imedicalapps, I have witnessed firsthand the transformation of the ipad in medicine. When the first ipad was launched more than two years ago, I did an in depth review from a medical perspective, and concluded the ipad was not a slam dunk for medical professionals. Rather, I felt the ipad s place in medicine would largely depend on the quality of medical apps available: Does this mean medical professionals should go out and get the ipad Not necessarily The ipad is only as good as the App Store The quality of the medical section of the App Store for the ipad has cemented its place in medicine. Arguments can be made about getting an iphone verse an Android device, but there is no tablet that rivals the ipad s medical section for healthcare professionals. And because of this, the ipad has proliferated in medicine and with physicians. There are a series of studies backing up the rapid proliferation of the ipad in medicine. For those of us in medicine, we see anecdotal examples of this everyday in the hospital and clinic setting. With this analogous proliferation of ipad medical apps, sorting through them can be an arduous undertaking, mainly because many of the ipad apps in the medical section are not for medical professionals and miscategorized. The editors at imedicalapps have gone through the free medical apps available for the ipad, and we have chosen 10 free medical apps that healthcare professionals can utilize. These apps range from simple drug reference apps to 3D virtual reality medical apps that make use of the ipads accelerometer. Unlike many other so called top 10 lists, this list is not based on the most downloaded apps in the medical section of the App Store. Methods: Over 2,500 free medical apps were browsed using itunes. Apps were selected for potential inclusion based on their usability as deemed by the Editorial Staff at imedicalapps. ipad apps that have already been reviewed on imedicalapps were looked at closely for inclusion on this list. Over 300 medical app reviews have been written or edited by the Editors at imedicalapps, and based on this vast experience apps were ranked according to voting by the editorial staff. Exclusion criteria: Apps that require in app purchases. Apps with Lite versions. Apps that require subscriptions to use. This did not apply to Journal apps that provide partially free content. At the time of publication, the apps mentioned in this compilation piece are free, this status can always change based on the developers of the apps. Before proceeding to our top 10 list, we encourage our readers to follow us on Face book and Twitter. We regularly announce app and product giveaways through these mediums, as well as providing breaking news and updates on key medical apps. 1. Medscape Once again, Medscape is the top free ipad medical app. The Medscape app has been downloaded more than 500,000 times in the App Store, and with good reason. The App s Drug Reference section is arguably the best in the App Store. Many of our readers have commented how this app has replaced the prior go to drug reference app Epocrates. Along with drug reference information, the app contains an Interaction checker, News, and CME education. Unlike many other medical apps that are merely expanded versions of their iphone counterparts, Medscape has done a great job of building their app specifically for the ipad. This is evident with the comprehensive search functioning, allowing you to quickly look up a drug or how to do a lumbar puncture with lightening speed. The app also enables users to have offline access to its contents. Crucial for providers who don t have a wireless plan for their ipad or for those who don t have a dedicated Wi Fi connection to count on. One of the more subtle surprises of this app is the ability to look up herbal drugs something you ll be pressed to find with any other free drug reference tool.

2 2. MicroMedex MicroMedex remains one of the most under rated medical apps for the ipad. The app is a fantastic prescription drug reference tool. There is no registration required, and the overall user interface is clean and easy to use. It s a go to app for many medical institutions, and widely popular with pharmacists. The only downside of the app is a constant pop up that appears asking users to download their prescription interaction checker app that costs $10. Other than this small annoyance, the app itself has a surplus of knowledge. As the below video shows, some of our favorite sections of the app are the Toxicology and Clinical Teaching sections. 3. Calculate by QxMD Every physician knows having a good medical calculator is crucial in almost any specialty. One of the unique characteristics of this app is the ability for providers to search for calculators by specialty. While this might seem like a good idea, most providers don t actually scroll through to find calculators they want to use. Rather, we often use the search feature for the medical calculators we want to use. In our testing, we would have preferred if the Search function was more readily available, instead of being behind the scenes, as our demonstration video indicates. Once you get past this downside, the algorithms and calculators the app provides are plentiful, and more importantly, easy to use. The developers of the app provide a nice double panel user interface for quickly plugging in information. Unfortunately the app doesn t utilize this in vertical mode. 4. Patient Education apps: Draw MD series / Cancer.net / inmotion 3D The ipad has not only improved the physician workflow with a gamut of reference applications, but it has enabled us to communicate better with our patients quite possibly the device s most resounding accomplishment. In the past year we have seen an influx of medical apps aiming to help improve the physician patient relationship. The flagship of this ideal has to be the Draw MD series. The Draw MD apps do exactly what their name state. They enable physicians to draw out surgical procedures to their patients in a palatable manner. The series contains nine app currently, with seven specialties covered: Cardiology, General Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, OB/GYN, Urology, ENT, and Anesthesia. These apps by Draw MD alone should give physicians a legitimate reason to purchase an ipad. Cancer.net is not an app that physicians themselves can use, but is an app included on this list due to its ability to transform a patient s cancer experience. We included this app in our list of three healthcare apps physicians should consider prescribing to patients. The app is a product of the American Society of Clinical Oncology(ASCO). It enables patients to meticulously track their cancer therapy and also provides them a wealth of legitimate information on their disease. Physicians should consider prescribing this app to every patient who is going through cancer therapy. InMotion 3D is an app by the Stryker Corporation, a medical device company with a focus on orthopedics. The app can be used for patient education of knee anatomy. Obviously, Stryker is promoting their own devices within the app, but the 3D interactive anatomy of the app is tremendously fun to use. In the below video we show the type of fun you can have with the app.

3 5. AHRQ epss inject some humor into this piece). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) should be commended for moving into the mobile space. Whereas pharma and other sectors of the medical industry are struggling to go mobile the US Department of HHS has had an iphone app available for about two years now. Aptly named Electronic Preventive Services Selector, their ipad app does not disappoint. Bringing the United States Preventive Services Task Force s (USPSTF) recommendations to mobile form. Although if you re a Urologist, you might not care for the USPSTF s recommendations (reference their decision of PSA and Prostate cancer screening we couldn t help but One of the neat features of the epss app is the ability to link to HTML calculator pages within the app. For example, in the below video we show how the app links to a Risk Assessment tool for estimating the 10 year risk of having a heart attack based on the Framingham Heart study. There are even sections linking you to patient education PDF files, enabling you to your patients learning material. In future iterations we would love to see a comprehensive search function within the app. 6. Radiology 2.0: One Night in the ED When I show this app to residents and attending physicians, their first question is, How expensive is this?. I have always gotten a look of shock when I explain to them the app is free. The reason for the look of shock is due to the massive amount of content curated for the app. The app contains 65 Radiology cases that pertain to Emergency Medicine but knowledge that can be used for almost every other specialty. The content has been curated by Daniel Cornfeld MD, who is an Assistant Professor at Yale University School of Medicine. A text explanation of this app does not do it justice, and in the video we show how in depth the cases are in regards to teaching. In short, when using Radiology 2.0 you feel like a radiology attending is sitting next to you teaching you each individual case. This app is a must download for every medical professional, no matter your level of training. 7. Free ibooks The release of ibooks 2 and the accompanying ibooks author has created a massive gap in the market for interactive electronic textbooks created by physicians, for physicians. The ibooks Author desktop application has lowered the barrier of entry for those interested in creating interactive textbooks. Now, Physicians armed with the desktop application and without prior programming skills are able to create beautiful medical textbooks at home, and publish them in the ibooks store immediately making texts available to tens of millions of individuals. ibooks now contains a range of medical texts that have been heavily featured here at imedicalapps. Since Apple s announcement and our commentary, we have seen two acclaimed medical ibooks released, both free. The first to launch was by Dr. Ed Wallitt of Podmedics, called The Podmedics Do Surgery. The ibook contains a range of interactive media including videos, podcasts, questions,and more. As the title states, the book is about common pathology seen in Surgery, and how to manage surgical patients. The second major medical ibook to launch is by a medical student in the UK, Stuart Stewart, who created an ibook to help students understand and learn the Brachial Plexus to a greater details.

4 8. 3D Virtual Simulation Medical Apps: Upper Respiratory Virtual Lab / ilarynx Learning about the airway takes a completely different meaning with these two apps. Even if you re not in critical care medicine, you can appreciate the sophistication and ingenuity behind these apps. Upper Respiratory Virtual Lab, created by the Georgia Health Sciences University, is a straightforward 3D animation app that guides users through the upper respiratory system at a macro level. Those of us who grew up with the Magic School Bus cartoons will appreciate the ground level approach this app takes in teaching the Upper Airway demonstrated in the below video. ilarynx has to be one of the most ingenious ipad medical apps we ve seen in the App Store. The idea itself is the focal point, whereas the practicality of the app needs more work. The premise of the the app is you are about to intubate with fiberoptic laryngoscopy and you have to use the ipad s accelerometer as well as on screen buttons to manipulate the scope in order to secure the airway. I ve used a fiberoptic scope to intubate before, and I must admit, this app does offer a relatively accurate description of how the scope manipulates. However, there are a massive amount of variables not taken into account: namely, not everyone intubates with fiberoptic scopes at the head of the bed. These things as an aside, it should again be emphasized that this is one of the most ingenious app ideas we ve seen for the ipad. 9. Free Journals and PDF management solutions: Lancet / Circulation / Dropbox / Evernote As more medical professionals are reading on their ipad medical journals have realized the importance of shifting their content to an ipad friendly form. Earlier this month, we published a well received compilation list of all the medical journals that had made the transition to the ipad. We were surprised by the number, over 60 medical journals are available for the ipad we had presumed the list to be significantly less. Most of the ipad Journal apps require a subscription to use, such as the New England Journal of Medicine whose ipad offering we reviewed extensively in the below video: There are two notable ipad Journal Apps that are free to use, such as the Lancet and Circulation. The Lancet does make some of their offerings private, but has a good amount of content free. Circulation offers almost a years worth of content for free. We encourage you to look at our compilation article of all the medical journals available for the ipad to see if a Journal you subscribe to has a mobile offering. Along with Journal apps, there are great free Cloud based apps enabling Physicians to store medical literature on their ipad. Two apps we are huge fans of are Dropbox and Evernote. For a great video showing how medical professionals can utilize the free DropBox app in medicine, please visit MedPage Today MedPage Today has always been one of our favorite apps. To those not familiar, MedPage Today is an online medical news service for physicians and healthcare professionals. The site enables physicians to keep up to date on breaking medical news, as well as providing CME activities within the app. MedPage Today s ipad app has gone through tremendous changes in the past month alone. Recently MedPage Today partnered with Thomas Reuters Healthcare to provider prescription drug monographs along with disease pathology information. This is a huge step in establishing MedPage Today as one of the must have apps for healthcare professionals. If MedPage Today can optimize the user interface on their drug monographs and disease pathology information, this app could eventually rival the Medscape ipad app.

5 Conclusion: The diversity and quality of the Top 10 free ipad medical apps list shows the ipad has become more than just a tablet for consuming everyday content. Rather, it shows the ipad now possesses the ability to improve the physician workflow, and as we demonstrated in our videos, offers the ability to improve the patient physician relationship. Because of the App Store the ipad has become the fixture tablet for medical professionals, analogous to how Epocrates used to be on every physician s Palm device in the early 2000s. Apple has clearly replaced Palm, and the diverse App Store has replaced Epocrates s compilation of apps. We would be remiss not to highlight Epocrates exclusion on this list. For a company that was at the forefront of mobile when the iphone launched, Epocrates has yet to deliver a legitimate ipad offering, not even bothering to convert their popular iphone app to ipad format. But the top 10 list highlights how there are many options for health care providers now, unlike before. Much of the content in our compilation of apps is free because it was written by Physicians themselves, such as the The ibooks we mentioned along with the innovative 3D medical simulation apps showing mobility is the future of medicine. Maybe more importantly this shows Physicians don t have to be beholden to large software companies. Rather, we now have the power to create mobile tools for our own peers. Below are medical apps that also met our inclusion list and are free, but did not make the top 10 list. Honorable Mentions: The following apps did not make it into our Top 10 list, but did meet our inclusion criteria. Living Medical Textbooks: Free interactive textbooks on various disease pathology. Helps you do CME learning on your ipad. Citrix: Many hospital EMRs use Citrix as a portal to enable secure access to patient data from the comfort of your home. The ipad app is done beautifully, however, the constraints of your hospital EMR on your ipad is the limiting factor. NeuroMind for ipad: Created by a Neurosurgeon and simply a must have for neurosurgeons and also neurologists. Skeletal Head & Neck Pro III: 3D4Medical has created a series of anatomy apps in collaboration with the Stanford University School of Medicine. Although almost all of their apps will cost you, this is a free offering by the developers. Eyes Test: If you carry around the ipad with you, a good Eye Chart to check visual acuity is always a must have CathSource: A great app not only for cardiologists, but all health care providers. Helps you understand cardiac pathology to a different level, allowing you to see videos of actual cardiac pathology. 3M Littmann SoundBuilder: Simple and free app created by the standards makers in the stethoscope industry helps you learn cardiac murmurs better. Prognosis, Your Diagnosis: Simply put, a medical gamification app that goes through various cases and real time decision making. Brain MRI Atlas: While it s not the most polished app, it does provide quick and easy anatomy learning of the Brain. Solid for patient education as well. Surgical Radiology & Trauma Scenarios: Content created by the Department of Surgery at Lehigh Valley Health Network. A gamification app that utilizes Game Center on ios to teach various surgical pathology. If these apps were more polished, they would have made our top 10 list. That said, they are free to download and definitely offer great utility. ABFM Exam Prep: The American Board of Family Medicine has created this app for family physicians who are studying for boards. The Oncologist HD: An app geared for surgical, medical, and radiation oncologists. Full of videos and interactive features.