Top 10 'Paid' Apps for Medical Professionals

Healthcare Global takes a look at the Top 10 apps Medical Professionals should have on their tablet, and why it is that these applications continue to excel in the mHealth market. 

10. Learn Muscles, by Real Bodywork — $2.99 

This application provides a great resource for testing, referencing and any educational needs surrounding the study of anatomy and physiology. The program includes 141 muscle images with name, action, origin, insertion and comments, plus audio pronunciation guide, a quiz maker, an action viewer and six short videos. Rated 4.4 stars out of 5 on the Store ratings guide, this application keeps you up-to-date on your facts, while doing so in an engaging and user-friendly way.

9. Paramedic Protocol Provider, by Acid Remap — $9.99

Paramedic Protocol Provider provides quick offline access to over 350 field treatment protocols from the USA, Canada and Ireland. This resource is available for Android, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch that gives real-time offline search of field treatment protocols. Less than the cost of a field manual, this solutions provides an easy, user-friendly and efficient way of providing the best care while doing so in the more effective way possible.

Paramedic Daniel Egg states, “As a practicing paramedic I personally find Paramedic Protocol Provider to be one of the most useful applications in my iPhone. It has become an invaluable tool for rapid reference in the field, and it is one of the easiest and fastest ways we have to provide the most current protocol updates to our system. It is a resource I recommend to anyone who works in EMS."

8. Lab Values Pro, by Hipposoft — $2.99

Available on the iPad and iPhone, the app offers lab reference values, medical abbreviations and medical prefix and suffixes. This application stands as a premium resource for all healthcare professionals, doctors, nurses, and students with its comprehensive library of lab reference values, medical abbreviations and medical prefix/suffixes.

General Practitioner Donald Craig says, "I use this app everyday at my clinic and in the hospital. It's not just the lab values but the clinical info that's so valuable in this app. I can quickly look up info about a lab which is invaluable especially when you don't have an internet connection to do a web search."

7. ASRA Coags, by American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine — $3.99

Designed and based on the popular article, "Regional Anesthesia in the Patient Receiving Antithrombotic or Thrombolytic Therapy: American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine Evidence-Based Guidelines", this application allows you to search by either brand name or generic name. The app allows recommendations from either block type or intervention type, with reference to recently published ASRA guidelines. ASRA Coags makes the ASRA Anticoagulation Guideline reference available along with drug-specific summary information.

6. BiliCalc, by Jacob Beniflah — $1.99

This application deals with pediatrics, and is useful both for practicing physicians as well as concerned, loving parents. The program allows you to input the infant’s age at time of lab or manually input both the birth date and hour, as well as lab date and hour. Connecting directly to source journal articles, nomograms, and list of neuotoxicity risk factors, this device support both US and SI units and is rated 4.5 stars on the Store’s ratings guide.

On the Apple Store it is described as, “Designed by a pediatrician, BiliCalc uses the American Academy of Pediatrics 2004 "Management of Hyperbilirubinemia in Infants Greater than 35 Weeks of Age" to calculate the threshold for starting phototherapy based on the patient's age, bilirubin level, and neurotoxicity rk is. In addition, it will also tell you the patient's risk zone using the Bhutani Nomogram.”

5. MedCalc, by Mathias Tschopp & Pascal Pfiffner — $1.99

MedCalc gives the user easy access to complicated medical formulas, scores, scales and classifications. Each formula has been individually designed and optimized for the small iPhone screen. The main features of the app include: a very large (more than 300) selection of relevant formulas, scores, scales and classifications, detailed information and bibliographic references for each formula, support for US and SI units, with easy switching from the keypad, custom overlaid controls: no sliding in and out to input values, search for equations by name or keywords, and a customizable list of favorite equations MedCalc offers access complicated medical formulas, scores, scales and classifications.

Produced by Mathias Tschopp & Pascal Pfiffner, this app is rated three stars for users for ease of access and likeability compared to its competitors.

4. Pill Identifier, by Drugs.com — $0.99

To address the issue of leftover prescription pills or the misuse of prescription medication, Pill Identifier is working to keep the public safe with its latest addition to the mHealth scene. Pill Identifier edition is a searchable database which includes more than 10,000 Rx/OTC medications found in the U.S. Features “search as you type” functionality. The app encourages users to contact healthcare providers if pills are not matched in its internal system, or encourages safe ways of disposing of the unwanted pills.

3. ASCCP Mobile, by American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology — 9.99

This application has been developed to be a comprehensive, user-friendly app for the Updated consensus Guidelines for Managing Abnormal Cervical Cancer Screening Tests. At the click of a button, recommendations and algorithms can be viewed by the app-user to determine important results about patient data. The application includes: real-time access to data, simple keystrokes, easy to follow instructions, iPhone, iPad, and Android savvy and is also available in Spanish as well as English.

“The ASCCP has developed a comprehensive, user friendly app for the Updated Consensus Guidelines for Managing Abnormal Cervical Cancer Screening Tests and Cancer Precursors. Each individual recommendation and the algorithms can be viewed following a few keystrokes to enter important patient data.”

2. Critical Care ACLS Guide, by Informed Publishing — 5.99

Created by Informed Publishing, this app is backed by the leading organization in emergency reference since 1986. The Critical Care ACLS Guide allows access to physicians, paramedics and nurses to review ACLS drug doses, access EKGs, look-up patient medications, bookmark frequented data, add notes and provide an expanded search capacity to users.

“I have been using Informed’s Critical Care ACLS Guide for years and never go to work without it,” reports Shaun Michael Scott, RN, EMTP, CareFlite Flight Nurse.

Rated four stars by users, this app is not only user-friendly, but is cost-effective for the amount of services provided by this handheld medical tool.

1. Micromedex Drug Reference, by Truven Health Analytics — $2.99

Micromedex Drug Reference Essentials gives consumers real-time access to drug information. As a part of the Micromedex Medication Management apps bundle, this app can work in tandem with Micromedex Drug Interactions and Micromedex IV Compatibility to provide a well-balanced healthcare suite of services.

In operation for over 40 years, this organization has provided hospitals and healthcare providers with an exceptional single source site for clinical information including: need-to-know drug, pediatric, disease, lab and toxicology information for patient and consumer education.

This feature was printed in the July edition of Healthcare Global magazine.