In 2016, the health care community was overwhelmed with new technology: virtual reality, augmented reality, 3d printing. It made headlines and news items. It formed the exciting frontier and captured the attention of many. However, quietly flooding the market are just under 260,000 medical apps in the market to date. PricewaterhouseCoopers' recent study showed health care as the top 3 mobile trends of 2016. The majority of apps are designed for the patient and consumers of health care to use, however there have been many well thought out apps that are helping make health care professionals' daily clinical work easier. Smartphone use is ubiquitous and therefore bring your own devices in health care is common. What apps are allowing our doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists to do their work better or faster? Which ones allow them to take care of us better? We reviewed the best iOS and Google Play used by health care professionals.
1) 3d4medical Essential Anatomy 5
Apple App Store Rating: 5/5 Google Play Store Rating 4/5
Cost: $34.99
3d4medical makes anatomy an immersive experience. Using high definition three dimensional and layered images of the human body, the user can peel away and learn about the human body from an outside in approach. This almost gives the user the illusion that they are dissecting through the layers. No one makes anatomy on a smartphone as beautiful as this.
2) ShareSmart
Apple App Store Rating: 5/5 Google Play Store Rating 5/5
Cost: Free
The Whatsapp of Health. Someone finally gets clinical secure messaging and photo sharing right! ShareSmart is a privacy law compliant communication solution for all health care professionals to discuss about patient management and share photos, X-rays, ECGs etc. It has in-app consent management, secure cloud storage, encrypted chat. This is the most intuitive and easy to use app of this sort.
3) UpToDate
Apple App Store Rating: 3.5/5 Google Play Store Rating: 4.5/5
Cost: Free with In-App purchase for content $499 per year
UpToDate is not new to these lists. It is very reliable and up to date medical information which is peer reviewed. Topics are vast and tend to be very strong for clinical medicine and slightly less reliable for surgical knowledge. However, having this at your fingertips will allow you to be comfortable with any subject.
4) SeamlessMD
Apple App Store Rating: Not enough to be averaged Google Play Store Rating:5/5
Cost: Free
SeamlessMD specializes in perioperative patient experience. It helps educate and direct patients through clinical pathways designed to enhance or improve recovery and outcome. As patients use the app to input data points, the information is transferred back to the clinician for research and feedback.
5) Epocrates
Apple App Store Rating: 3/5 Google Play Store Rating 4/5
Cost: Free with In-App purchase $174.99 per year.
Epocrates is a common name to the health care professional. It originated from the palm pilot and still houses very accurate and important information especially for drug safety and prescribing guidelines. We kept it on this list because it still is a very good source but concerns about the newest updates include frequent crashes. Still commendable for being one of the workhorse apps for pharmacy students and nurse practitioners.
Lots of choices are out there but it is often difficult to find truly useful apps for the health care professional. Have you tried these apps? Which ones do you find useful?
The Best Personal Finance Services of 2017
Need to make sense of your entire budget or even just get a better handle on your monthly household spending? One of these top-rated apps can help.