Archive for the ‘All’ Category

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Are we waiting for Palm Pre?

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Several of my colleagues are anxiously waiting for the Palm Pre to let go their dreams of having just another great medical Palm device… Should they wait?

Palm Inc. recently announced that Palm Pre will be released from Sprint on next June 6.

Palm Pre

But let me remind you of something;

This is not a PDA, this is a Smartphone. Which means that you have the obligation of a 2 years contract from Sprint and if you are not a current Sprint subscriber then you will unlikely be holding the Palm Pre anytime soon.

Gone are those the days of Palm Tx when we used to show off that cool device as an amazing miraculous gadget that can help us diagnose and treat our patients. Now almost everyone carries a minicomputer in his pocket.

The convergence of the phone and the PDA has been noticed during the last two to three years and Palm is no exception, they realized that if you don’t get your phone, contacts, and Internet together with your PDA applications you are unlikely to addict to it [ just like how you are now addicted to your Blackberry or iPhone].

In fact with the exception of the HP’s iPAQs 111 and 211 there has been no major PDA-only device released into the market, all Smartphones.

Doctors really like the Palm OS and a high percentage insist on the Palm but what are they going to do this time! Are they willing to abandon their AT&T’s iPhone or their Verizon’s blackberry 2 years contract for the sake of a Sprint’s Palm Pre?

Let’s wait and see..

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Posted in All, Devices, News, Opinions, Palm | 8 Comments »

Unbound Medicine on Android

Friday, May 15th, 2009

Android has been there for quite a while now but there has been no serious medical applications for it so far except perhaps an iSilo compatibility.

Today, Unbound Medicine announced the availability of Android version of several of their popular titles such as the Merck Manual and Davis Drug guide.

Here are some screenshots copied from their website;

Unbound Medicine Android

Check out the list of available titles here http://www.unboundmedicine.com/android

If this is telling us anything then it is the fact that medical applications are now ubiquitous on all mobile devices whether it’s Palm, Windows, iPhone, Android, or others.

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Posted in All, Android, News | 2 Comments »

Swine Flu on your handheld!

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

So not only the TV and the Internet has been flooded by Swine flu news. Medical PDA developers quickly responded and posted updates right into our handhelds.

Meistermed published a new updated iSilo document that can be downloaded into any mobile here’s an iPod Touch example;

The above iSilo document is also available for all other platforms a free download from this page http://www.meistermed.com/swineflu and the iSilo reader is available for all platforms here and for your iPhone/iPod Touch download it from iTunes here.

It includes last hour information updates as it’s released from the CDC. However, it’s not automatically updated and you’d have redownload the file should it gets updated.

If you are subscribed to Skyscape MedAlerts then you’ll also get some updates about Swine flu here’s some screen shots;

Micromedex also sent emails that their Clinical Xpert is now update with the latest swine flu info.

So let’s closely monitor the pandamic on our PDAs …

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Posted in All, News, Pediatric RSS, Updates, and Alerts, iPhone | 5 Comments »

Shots 2009, A Complete Vaccine Tool

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

The new updated Shots vaccine PDA app is available for free from The Society of Teacher of Family Medicine, Group on Immunization Education. Website is www.immunizationed.org

Play the video for details;

This is perhaps the best vaccine tool that we can all have on our PDA for free.

A very simple user interface with a single page and no need for scrolling up and down or right and left. The app is updated as soon as the new ACIP recommendations are out each year.

Don’t buy the Skyscape version just download the free Shots which is compatible with Palm and Windows Mobile OS.

Vote for it in the Best vaccine app poll and may be the Best free app poll also.

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Posted in All, Vaccines | 5 Comments »

New Updated Epocrates Essentials on iPhone

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

Epocrates launched the latest version [2.51] yesterday. It delivers significant improvements over the previous versions but most noticable is the new disease images which we have been waiting for quite long time.

The images added are not just a bunch of nice images to say that the app has images, no, there are hundreds of them and many many dx entries are supplemented with [sometimes more than one] images which are crisp clear and highly relevant.

Sadly, however, these images are not actually hosted on the native app and requires 3G or Wifi connection whenever requested. This is unfortunate because it means that we highly unlikely to see these images in closed CT scan and other hospital indoors still lacking adequate Wifi. Probably add these images to the Epocrates app would significantly increase the memory requirements that’s they avoided that.

Another great enhancement in the latest version is the landscape mode which is previously unsupported, here’s how it looks

Also now the search page include extra options such as disease by system and labs but still we want to see the major search box in all the sections and not only the main page.

Bottom line, Epocrates continues to demonstrate commitment in providing the latest updates with more and more features time after time consistantly.

However, we are still waiting for Sx and CME to arrive on the iPhone, version 3.0 perhaps!

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Posted in All, All-in-one Applications, News, iPhone | 2 Comments »

The new Skyscape iPhone apps

Friday, April 24th, 2009

We said that Skyscape has recently changed their business model and is now offering paid apps directly from the app store and we explained why here.

But what is interesting is that all of these new apps are actually funneled back into the mother app [The Skyscape Medical Resources, recently referred to as The Skyscape App], here’s how they guide us …

Now the question is Why? and the answer is simply, their SmartLink technology. One of the biggest features of Skyscape that makes their different resources work synergistically when they are installed together by cross linking.

On Palm and Pocket PC, there was no problem. Different titles installed in different folders and they were still cross linked to each other. But on iPhone this is not possible, you cannot jump from one app to another. That’s why whatever new Skyscape app you install is going to establish itself into the mother app and its icon will then merely function as a shortcut to the mother app, even they explicitly mention that you can now delete this icon and keep the mother app [see screenshots above].

Accordingly, we can now understand why all the new apps have a single common icon on which there is a stamp called Admit One!

Skyscape New Paid App Icon

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Posted in All, All-in-one Applications, News | No Comments »

Skyscape and Unbound Medicine finally moved to paid iPhone apps

Friday, April 24th, 2009

As we expected and explained why in a previous post that the new Apple rules do not allow free apps which would then ask for subscriptions from outside the app store. So here’s the action started, two of the biggest medical developers started offering their apps paid right away from the app store.

For Unbound Medicine there was the Diagnosaurus and just few days ago the Handbook of Nursing Diagnosis, both apps have to be purchased right from the app store and not from Unbound Medicine’s website as it was the case for Nursing Central, Taber’s, and others.

Skyscape, similarly, has also started to market their subscription based titles as stand-alone apps on the app store. In fact, they have gone so furious that as of this moment there’s 29 new paid apps of their various titles on iTunes app store!

The good news is that the Pediatric Constellation is one of the earliest available :)

However, what’s really interesting, is that they still offer the various short and long term subscription options on the Skyscape website. Not only that, but also they still send users to their website when the Skyscape Universe tab is tapped on the Skyscape Medical Resources [they recently started to call it the Skyscape App]! It could be just a matter of time before they modify these options, but definitely before the official launch of iPhone 3.0 OS next Summer.

While for Unbound Medicine, right away they tell you go to iTunes to purchase the app and sorry there’s no free trial [see their web page] obviously they did not work out a “lite” free version of the new Handbook of nursing diagnosis.

So now let’s wait for epocrates and Pepid to join the new club and no more $$$ missing Apple pockets!

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Posted in All, News, iPhone | No Comments »

Even Andrew Schechtman is switching to the iPhone!

Friday, April 17th, 2009

A long time Palm and iSilo hard-liner is showing strong attraction towards the new era, the iPhone…

The founder of Meistermed and all other products where you find the word meister, ICDmeister, Dermeister, and PCodemeister to name some of them.

The San Jose based MD is leaving the Palm and iSilo behind. First he started writing his popular titles on the iPhone but still on an iSilo reader. In fact, Meistermed titles are one of the biggest reason why we should ever think of buying the iPhone’s iSilo app. Then, now, he must have realized the iSilo headaches and started making a stand-alone iPhone and iPod Touch apps of the same great titles.

The first title to appear was the ICDMeister, here’s how it looks on the iPod Touch;

This is a great ICD coding app for only $3.99 annual subscription. Similar apps may reach $30! Update: the price will change soon [see comments below].

Seamless flow and unmatched rapid access to the code that we want. Search by disease, abbreviation, or by code. The home page is a great list of categories simplifying the navigation, and yes the pediatric category is there.

For further details check out the Pda4peds review.

Polling for the Best Coding and Billing reference on the handheld has kicked off recently on Pda4peds, have your say..

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Posted in All, Coding & Billing | 2 Comments »

Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopoeia

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

One of the coolest apps ever came from USBMIS is the Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopoeia. Not only it delivers the latest Tarascon drug index but also it sports some very useful tools and a real multi drug interactions analyzer. However, the app did not qualify as an all-in-one application since it does not include a disease and labs reference.

Have a look here;

An intuitive design with a single page interface where all venues can be accessed. The pharmacological index is the latest with frequent updates as the device is docked and synced. However, we’d wish to see a direct in-device Wifi update which would make the update process much easier.

Pediatricians may find this app very handy as it appropriately includes pediatric dosing and also calculators and tools that are needed at the point of care.

Tarascon is also partnered with NeedyMeds, Consumer Drug Information, and the latest prices are picked from Drugstore.com. The drug interaction analyzer is very easy to use and has got it’s own tab.

Another wonderful feature is the recently added Inter Linking technology in USBMIS apps, which is just like Skyscape’s Smart Linking, makes the purchase of multiple apps synergistically boosting each individual app as we can cross link keywords. In fact, the USBMIS model may feel easier to use as the keyword is highlighted with a yellow color so that we know what to cross check, unlike Skyscape’s Smart Linking.

The things that we missed from Tarascon are:
1- a built-in drug dose calculator and hopefully this is going to be added in future version. and 2- an iPhone version is really needed in the this era of iPhone mania!

For an annual price of $40, this great drug reference ranks high among the list of choices when it comes to the most commonly used PDA task [looking up drug dosage and information].

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Posted in All, Calculators, Converters, Tools, Drug Guides, Drug Interactions | 1 Comment »

Skyscape Medalerts, a great free service

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

If you have a look at the current voting results of the Best Free PDA application poll on Pda4peds you see that Skyscape’s MedAlerts ranks the second best.

This post is to revisit this cool free service from Skyscape, specially with the latest improvements that we noticed.

Here’s how it looks on Windows Mobile;

One of the most important enhancement recently added to MedAlerts is the push notifications. So that not only when we dock and synchronize the device we get the latest news but also these feeds can be pushed into the device if we choose to do so [as seen on the screenshots above].

The app will find your internet connection whether it’s Wifi or 3G and get you the news right in.

Another new feature recently added, is the option to send the news to our friends via email. A new small email icon now appears next to the title [circled in red in the screenshot above] which if tapped will allow us to choose the email addresses that we want to send the news to.

As we mentioned before, Skyscape MedAlerts can be totally specialty specific by choosing from the list in the Skyscape/my account page and it installs with a free desktop version.

Further detailed reviews of MedAlerts on Pocket PC and MedAlerts on iPhone are available on Pda4peds.

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Posted in All, Best, Free, Pediatric RSS, Updates, and Alerts | No Comments »

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