Chris Thorman from softwareadvice referred me to his new online survey that he recently posted here. The survey starts with this statement; The smartphone industry is on fire. iPhone, Blackberry, Palm Pre and Google are all in the hunt for dominance. We want to know one thing: Which phone will become the device of choice for healthcare providers?
In that survey he’s asking what type of mobile device health care professionals are using and for what purpose.
However, I may disagree with the question itself. Because there will be no winner in the near future. They are all good and they are all competing with each other and adding more and more features day after day. Have a look at the best PDA device for pediatricians article in Pda4peds. It’s difficult to say that any of Google, Microsoft, Apple, Palm, or RIM will ever win our hearts!
Nonetheless, this survey could give us a clue about the current point prevalence in the Smartphone market and It would be interesting to see the results.
For those of you who don’t know about Charter, here’s a short statement, Charter Communications, Inc. is a Fortune 500 company and the fourth-largest cable operator in the United States. Charter provides advanced video, high-speed Internet, and telephone services to approximately 5.5 million residential and business customers in 27 states.
Now why should I be writing about a cable company in a pediatric PDA blog? this is because recently they launched a marketing campaign in which they will give an HP 550 Notebook PC – Model KS158UT and a NeoTec Computer Backpack (approximate retail price is $415) for those who sign up to their services in what’s called Laptop-a-Day Sweepstakes.
Well, yah it could be a remote possibility to win that prize but am signing up because I hate the way Comcast increasing the bill every now and then and I don’t want to settle to “low speed” ADSL AT&T service!
Having a good Internet connection at home is very important for proper use of our handhelds now that everything turning to be web based. Wifi connection at home is certainly advantageous over the costly GPRS unlimited data plans provided by mobile carriers and I encourage everyone to get a descent Internet at home with a good wireless network to avoid extra charges from mobile carriers.
For those of you who don’t know about Charter, here’s a short statement, Charter Communications, Inc. is a Fortune 500 company and the fourth-largest cable operator in the United States. Charter provides advanced video, high-speed Internet, and telephone services to approximately 5.5 million residential and business customers in 27 states.
Now why should I be writing about a cable company in a pediatric PDA blog? this is because recently they launched a marketing campaign in which they will give an HP 550 Notebook PC – Model KS158UT and a NeoTec Computer Backpack (approximate retail price is $415) for those who sign up to their services in what’s called Laptop-a-Day Sweepstakes.
Well, yah it could be a remote possibility to win that prize but am signing up because I hate the way Comcast increasing the bill every now and then and I don’t want to settle to “low speed” ADSL AT&T service!
Having a good Internet connection at home is very important for proper use of our handhelds now that everything turning to be web based. Wifi connection at home is certainly advantageous over the costly GPRS unlimited data plans provided by mobile carriers and I encourage everyone to get a descent Internet at home with a good wireless network to avoid extra charges from mobile carriers.
When I first downloaded Skyscape’s Medical Bag for only $1.99, I was telling myself OK this would be very simple for sure. Telling myself that this must be a shrunken version of Skyscape’s titles seducing us to buy the fuller versions, a standard marketing strategy still valid in the tech world. Much like getting a tiny free sample of an expensive perfume.
However, and stunningly, it was not! Play this video for details;
In fact if you see the video above it shows clearly that the life support content is exactly as the original version and the selected calculators are closer to Archimedes 360 than it is to the free Archimedes. Only the lab section is perhaps significantly trimmed down from the original Labs 360, but in any case still they include what is commonly asked for in clinical practice.
But anyway this is a great deal. The combined prices of the original components is over $80 in Skyscape’s Website and you get them all for only $1.99! Are they serious?
This is not the first time Skyscape is giving away their titles in such a low price. They have done it before in their first iPhone app, the Skyscape Medical Resources. Probably, they realized that selling thousands [may be hundreds of thousands] of low priced apps is more profitable than selling hundreds of high priced apps.
Note that both Skyscape Medical Resources and Skyscape Medical Bag are not offered in the Skyscape website only in iTunes App Store, and there are no Palm or WM or BB versions, only iPhone version. Why? may be they want to take advantage of the alarmingly increasing number of “iPhone” doctors!
Ultimately, this is good for us consumers. We certainly love lower prices.
So here’s my advice; if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, Do not buy Life Support 360, And perhaps Don’t buy Archimedes 360 and Labs 360 either.
And if you don’t have an iPhone or iPod Touch, get yourself one of them soon.
Of note, Skyscape is using their properiatory titles in these “subsidized” collections because otherwise they would have to pay royalties if they for example include the Harriet Lane or Davis’s Drug Guide.
DocGuide a website that provides individualized insight into the latest updates and literature filtered from over 200 well recognized national and international journals has recently released an iPhone app that allows access to our account on the go.
One of the great features of DocGuide is that subscribers can star an interesting article they have just read which translates into a voting system enabling us to see which articles have shaken the boat recently.
DocGuide is a physician only community in that they check the license of each and every subscriber. This is good in ensuring a pure doctors rating of the articles.
Another great feature of DocGuide App is that it’s highly individualized and tailored to our needs. For example when you choose pediatrics you get to see only those articles that are of interest in pediatrics and even you can segment that into what type of articles you want to see such as pure research, clinical, news and press and others.
Not only that, but you get to choose what journals, diseases, and drugs [see screenshots above] you want to keep an eye on!
The app is free [download in iTunes] and subscription to DocGuide is also free.
The only missing feature from this great journal app is the ability to earn CME credit. Nowadays, it’s hard to convince a physician to read an article on the go without simultaneously earning CME on the fly.
Patrick Verloo released his first ever iPhone app and it is an APGAR calculator.
Given the fact there are dozens of Apgar calcs for the iPhone by now one would think this app is not going to add anything. However, there’s something in this app that is not seen in any other Apgar score calculator which is a timer.
It’s a smart idea to start the time once the baby is born so that we know when to record the one minute and five minute Apgar scores, this is really handy. Peds and Neo colleagues keep their eye on the wall mounted clock and then pick out their calculator, now with this app they can have them both in one single interface.
But for a single calc app it’s unlikely to stay resident in out iPhone devices as we appreciate more and more the limited real state we have on the iPhone and so ultimately we will keep those multifunctional apps, like for example keeping Mediquations instead of having a number of single calc apps.
$1.99 seems to be high of an Apgar score, it should be free or at least 99 cents.
The new 2008-2009 edition of the famous little yellow pocket book is out for the PDA and iPhone from Skyscape. Written by the chief editor of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal and in collaboration with the AAP’s Red Book Committee this reference is certainly an authority when it comes to antibiotics in clinical and community based pediatrics.
See this iPhone video review:
See this Windows Mobile video review:
Most of the contents are presented in table format and unfortunately the Skyscape interface [as well as most other developers] does not really fit those tables into the small PDA screen and so we’d have to scroll side to side to see the whole table which makes navigation rather unpleasant. In addition, the lack of landscape mode of Skyscape titles [as of the time of writing this post] further compounds this issue.
It has everything related to infectious disease pharmacotherapy with drug dosages even in detailed circumstances such as the neonatal patient. For each clinical syndrome there is a list of recommended antibiotics sometimes down to the third line of choice. However, the reverse is not true, we don’t get a list of indications against each antimicrobial. This is something we wish to see in future versions.
References and grading of evidence are not so extensively quoted against each recommendation in the Nelson Pocket Book and this will be accounted for in the future editions as mentioned in the newly published website www.nelsonspocketbook.com.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has just released the latest 28th edition of the most trusted infectious disease reference, The Red Book 2009.
Concomitantly, it was released from Unbound Medicine for the mobile platforms.
For iPhone/iPod Touch version play this video;
And this time with landscape support;
For the Windows Mobile version play this video;
Unbound Medicine’s Red Book is also compatible with all other platforms including Palm (but not Palm Pre), Blackberry, and even Android.
The AAP book store is offering the same Unbound Medicine Red Book and interestingly at a higher price for non-members!
Skyscape’s and other developers versions will be available in the near future as per the AAP.
Although not as rich as the AAP’s Red Book online, the UM’s web version of the Red Book is offered for free when we subscribe to any of the mobile platforms and so we can access it offline on the handheld and also online on the desktop and wirelessly.
The Red Book is undoubtedly a must-have reference for any pediatrician and we should all upgrade to this latest version, by the way UM provide free upgrade if you’ve been a valid subscriber of the previous version.
It can better
UM’s Red Book is great but still there’s room for improvements;
Wish to see images included.
Wish to see search history.
More linking to external resources.
A “what’s new” section would be great.
Also some problems were found in this first iPhone version;
There’s a bug in which the home page does not tilt to landscape only after switching to landscape from within the contents.
Some links are broken and others are dead as seen here;
However, since this is the first release we expect to see fixes in the near future.
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.
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?
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;
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.
