The drug doses booklet written by Frank Shann, which is also known as the little white book is widely known among Australian physicians and pediatricians. This simple drug dosages handbook has been transformed into the PDA by another ICU doctor named Oliver Karam.
It sports a collection of drug doses, some resuscitation drug calculators, a list of normal lab values, and a collection of pediatric calculators named PedCalc.
There are many way that this $20 application can be improved, here’s a list
- It should run faster. It is only a few KBs app and there should be no delay at all in loading the app. It relies on a runtime environment called Thaker Satellite forms which is not so popular. This runtime is the reason why it cannot be installed on the memory card but that’s not an issue because of its small size.
- The installation, the registration and the purchase processes should be much more easier.
- Entries should be cross linked like when we check acetaminophen it tells us check paracetamol but there’s no link to paracetamol and we have use search.
- The website and software needs some updates. Like you get a message “thank you for downloading Drug Doses 2007″ while you actually downloaded the latest 2008 updates. Also there should be more frequent updates.
- No built-in drug dose calculator despite the app’s name! and there should be some more info with each drug like at least the side effects.
- There should be at least double the number of the calculators available in the PedCalc portion of the application. Speaking of PedCalc it is available for free check the website here.
However, for an app developed solely be an ICU physician this a great start. Dr. Karam told us that he’s working on an iPhone version and so let’s wait and see.
This post has be contributed in part by Dr. Paul Fullerton.