The Best 8 Medical Apps For Doctors

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Information technologies in the area of health are not just there to help consumers, like it is the case with patients as shown in one of our latest articles here at Sudir Raju’s; they are also here to support doctors and healthcare professionals in providing better services and making their life easier in general. 

People today are using technology more and more to better manage many aspects of their everyday life. Anything from the way they shop, the manner in which they relate to their friends and family and also how they choose to entertain themselves in their leisure time. This phenomenon is not something that is indifferent to the field of healthcare and its involvement happens in more than one way. Users utilize wearable devices to track their fitness activities and thus take charge of their own health preventively; there are resources online that allow you to triage your own symptoms and quickly figure out if you do need a doctor or if your condition is nothing to worry about; and there are even apps that will help them remember when and how to take their medicine, complete with alarms, schedules and reminders.

That being said, patients are not the only ones who are in the receiving ends of the new technological advances in the area of health informatics, as doctors are finding now apps that are truly useful and that can make truly lend them a hand in their important role of keeping us healthy.

This is a list of some of the best and most useful apps for doctors available today.

Medscape

Medscape is one of the most downloaded medical apps and definitely a name you will see in any list out there you look up in reference to apps preferred by doctors. The app is a place for all things medical, since it offers current news from more than 30 different sources, clinical reference sections, videos and procedural tutorials and even activities for medical students.

Mediquations Medical Calculator

This app is a great medical calculator with more than 230 formulas and scores. It provides support for US and SI units and it stores your progress automatically allowing you to index searches and review your latest activity in the app. It also provides you with links to references and other relevant information that can help you find more information quickly and without having you stop what you are doing.

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Epocrates

This app literally has millions of downloads in the United States and it isn’t difficult to know why. Epocrates is one of the completest databases where doctors can consult drug information and interactions, reach other healthcare providers and have access to quick tools to help them during consultations. The app is free, but you do need to pay for a yearly subscription in order to have access to the information it provides.

3D4Medical

3D4Medical is a group of apps developed not just for medical educations, but also for professionals in the field to use everyday. The app has a great collection of 3D models of anatomy, medical conditions and complete systems featuring the human body and its inner workings. It can be used as a great tool to communicate with patients and be able to explain to them situations that require a more in-depth look and visual aids to make your point clear.

MediBabble

Now we are onto the topic of communication, MediBabble is a great app that helps bridge the gap created by language barriers between doctors and patients. This interpretation app is specially created for physicians and makes it easier to take information and perform exams in patients that don't speak English. The database has medical related questions and diagrams easy to follow that can help physicians communicate with patients in 6 different languages.

PEPID

PEPID is a great app developed specifically for doctors, nurses, EMTs, residents and students working inside the emergency room. The feature for symptom checker is a great way to diagnose based on the information you input that reflects patient’s signs, symptoms, physical exams and lab results. The app also offers information on common diseases associated with the current condition and even treatment options and drug interactions.

Doximity

Doximity is the closest thing to a social network for doctors, but with more relevant information to share with fellow physicians. Doximity is the only HIPAA-compliant mobile messaging system for healthcare professionals at the moment, so you can be sure that the information shared is secure.

NEJM This Week

A great information app that brings you the latest medical news from reputable sources and keeps you informed about everything that is going. All the articles are published within the last week and come with editorial information, reviews, commentaries and case studies. It also includes videos and audio material for moments in which you cannot read but still want to hear the latest.

How Medical Diagnosis Has Been Impacted By IT

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As per discussed by Sudir Raju in previous articles, as of the fourth industrial revolution and the emergence of today’s different IT technologies, pretty much every sector of the economy and the industry, in general, has adopted to some extent the use of this avant-garde aid. Thus, today, a considerable variety of different technologies and other tools are used in the medical diagnostic process all across the world; however, the primary focus of this article is to highlight the role of IT in the health sector as it has permeated a large group of different technologies in healthcare, ranging from electronic health records, clinical prognosis, patient engagement tools, data analysis, laboratory tools, laboratory imaging technologies to other medical devices, etc. 

Health IT is the key and plays a vital role in today’s western diagnostic process: it is responsible for capturing the information about an individual, thusly providing physicians with reliable and accurate information. It includes all sorts of data: from clinical history to physical exams, IT provides doctors and physicians with the necessary information in order for them to both prescribe and assess tests and subsequently outline their subsequent workflow with a patient. Besides, since it is widely known that patients attend to different health professionals depending on the complexity of their case, IT has also enabled the whole industry to share information from one side to another.

Since there are rather little doubts about the fact that health IT does really have the potential to improve today’s diagnostic and prognosis processes in a positive way. Every time health IT tools aid and support diagnostic team members in finding out what is really going on with an individual without losing sight of the importance of keeping a human-centered principle, health IT does really comes in handy as it reduces the chances of possible diagnostic errors. Be that as it may, nonetheless, there are also several instances where this has not been the case and the diagnostic process has not been improved whatsoever, which is why some members of the healthcare community are no less than skeptical when it comes to speeding up the pace to which such technology is now being implemented, for they want to minimize the possibility of making mistakes.

Implementing the use of health IT, however, does lean towards a much more positive side, as it does entail the potential to aid in the discovery of possible and plausible diagnostic errors. The medical community also recognizes that the adoption of Health Information Technologies can also span over other aspects around medical diagnostics such as the tools that now available for physicians to properly assess an individual. With that being said, and since the adoption of additional technologies is based on the fact that minimizing the chances of making mistakes and falling into misguided diagnostics basically aims to act in the betterment of a patient’s safety, the medical community seems to agree upon the fact that health IT interacts within a context in which the involved sociotechnical system involves not only the technology itself but also the individuals responsible for operating such workflow, which ultimately delivers a new level of complexity since the present factors interact with each other most of the times with unknown foreseeable outcomes.

However, if one were to take a much wider look at this topic in general, the design of health IT seeks to provide additional support to today’s diagnostic process, particularly by supporting physicians and all the individuals involved in it as well as the procedures and task they are supposed to perform. Thus, a patient’s safety or rather the degree to which an individual’s overall safety can be improved, rises up since the potential of diagnostic errors is diminished. The no less than an overwhelming amount of complexities found within the healthcare sector has required all professionals to get acquainted with a vast quantity of information, which has resulted in them actually facing many cognitive challenges as applying the aforementioned information outstrips human capacities. This, of course, has led to another type of challenges when it comes to diagnosing an individual.

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The aforementioned aspect is perhaps the key behind the adoption of all IT technologies within the healthcare sector. Doctors, physicians and pretty much every healthcare professionals often make diagnostic errors because they fall victim of their very own nature as they are no less than vulnerable to a fallible human memory, communication mistakes and lapses and other several aspects inherent to human nature. It has been widely accepted and recognized that IT has a tremendous, to say the least, potential to help these professionals to mitigate their limitations and actually step up their level; however, it is still soon to assert that every single sub-sector can harness IT to the same degree, for healthcare in other countries is actually way behind today’s developments and the adoption would actually be useless.

Some Of The Best Healthcare Apps For Patients

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Experts affirm that the market for healthcare applications alone could top $30 billion before the year 2020. This only encompasses a limited portion of what the entire information technology industry can offer to the field of medicine. Health informatics develops products and services at a pace that is getting difficult to keep up with, and there are many reasons why this is happening. On one side you have the technology in which this services rely on and the fact that this technology is not only growing, but also adjusting to all aspects of our lives and the market, which makes it impossible to ignore healthcare and for developers not to look for opportunities to improve the way it can best serve people. Secondly, we have the customers that are becoming more educated, more demanding and more expectant of what technology can do for them. This means that there is a group of consumers waiting to use this technology, people who depend on it to make their lives easier and who expect for companies to watch the trends of the market and actually anticipate such needs. And last but not least, we have the fact that healthcare as well technology leaders pursue to challenge their own work by attempting to go beyond and to continue to innovate everything. The benefits of this inquisitiveness are reaped by the public and consumers who are directly touched by the advantages brought forth by these technologies and the importance they have in improving their quality of life. 

Patients are extremely important in this world and their involvement with the technology that can help them improve their health cannot be set aside. Today in Sudir Raju’s blog, we want to talk about some actual examples of the capabilities of information technologies in the area of healthcare and how some of this apps are today at the reach of everyone who has access to the most simple and common of technologies. 

Diabetes: M

iOS/Android/Free to download

Diabetes: M is much more than just a logbook, it is a complete suite of tools that will help you manage your life with diabetes and keeping it under control easily. The app allows patients to keep meticulous records of pretty much every aspect of their life with diabetes, anything from the food they consume to their insulin intake, a bolus calculator and detail graphs that ease the understanding of values and the creation of charts to better observe the information. One of the best features of the app is the vast food database that allows you to find pretty much any type of meals and dishes and input portions in a way that is accurate and precise. Your reports can be exported in different formats and the app is easily compatible with all kinds of portable devices, including Smart Watches.

iTriage

iOS/Android/Free to download

iTriage is a complete medical database and healthcare tool that can quickly and accurately provides you with information about symptoms, causes, procedures and medicine used in different situations. Not only do you have information about illnesses at your fingertips, but also an updated listing of healthcare facilities, hospitals, physicians and other healthcare providers close to your current location. The app saves your preferences and searches so every time you use it is more accurate and updated. 

Instant Heart Rate

iOS/Android/Free to download

This app is considered the world’s best heart measurement option of its kind. The technology uses the camera on your phone to accurately measure your heartbeat using the color changes in your fingertip. This can be used for anyone from patients who need to monitor their vitals to athletes who keep a close watch of the biometrics and other performance information. While the app advices that it should be used for medical diagnosis, it does provide a great tool so you can quickly assess and measure your heart rate on the go. 

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Carezone

iOS/Android/Free to download

Carezone is a great app for those in charge of the healthcare of their family. It allows you to have different profiles with names, medications to take, dosages, alarms and many more features. It is perfect if you have children or if you take care of elderly patients. It also helps you stay organized with a calendar so you can schedule appointments, refills and other important dates to keep in mind.

Migraine Buddy

iOS/Android/Free to download

Migraines are difficult to deal with, and more so if you are unaware of their causes and onset. This app allows you to keep a journal on your migraines by letting you quickly jot down relevant information about triggers, symptoms, frequency, duration, intensity and location. Sadly migraines are not yet able to be explained fully by doctors, but this type of app helps the patient understand their condition better and their physicians help them make better decisions that can lead to curving their onset.

Big Data Analytics: A long way to walk in the world of health informatics

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Technology experts say that one of the great technological paradigms that will give a 180 ° turn to all aspects of human life is developing in the current era. One of the causes of this great paradigm shift is Big Data. Because, exponentially, all the objects and devices that surround us are becoming smart, meaning, among other things, that they are collecting the information that each of our actions produces and making metrics of it, every day they add a missing piece of the puzzle that constitutes the mystery of our human condition. Of course, the field of health informatics is no stranger to this great change of paradigm, and, certainly, Big Data will be a catalyst of our possibilities in the world of medicine.

Big Data brings a lot of optimism to the scientific community. Thanks to the massive collection and processing of information that artificial intelligence allows, scientists are saving decades (or perhaps centuries) of experimentation. This only means one thing: an incredibly broad spectrum (perhaps, too broad for our current capabilities) of possibilities for discoveries and inventions. And, in optimistic terms, this results in the defeat of impossible walls. More effective operations, safer, and with fewer risks, could be a daily matter. What many believe is that these developments will eradicate diseases that have given us hard battles, such as cancer or the infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria; and, even, some people assure that these scientific advances will take us to a point where we will transform our bodies into something beyond the 'human' concept.

But those are the dreams. There is also reality. The truth is that Big Data technology still has a long way to go before these bridges are built towards the impossible and beyond.

One of the main problems is that there is too much information available, but there is no way to process it and interpret it all to subsequently convert it into useful knowledge to solve practical problems. There are tons and tons of information stored on servers (and much more data being collected every second,) but we would need an immense army of researchers for being able to bring all of that into medical practice. For this reason, research on artificial intelligence is one of the most relevant trends at present: only a super processor (or many of them) could make this dream possible, and that is already a huge challenge itself.

Read also: 4 Trends That Will Likely Hover Around Health IT In 2018, by Sudir Raju

On the other hand, one of the big problems of Big Data is that it usually gathers a lot of unnecessary information. When researchers find - at last - a key question to answer for solving a particular problem (for example, regulating the immune system of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,) they realized that the machines have collected a great amount of information, but it is completely useless for the issues in question. How to program the machines so that they collect the correct information, before knowing which is the correct information? This problem is not impossible to solve, though, because, like many other scientific troubles, the trial and error technique allows you to eventually adjust the compass in the right direction. The point is that it takes a lot of time.

Big Data is fundamentally defined by five major interrelated variables: Volume, speed, variety, truth, and value. The volume is directly related to the amount of information collected, velocity is the time variable (how much data is collected in how much time,) variety has to do with how complex is the information which is being mined, veracity is the qualitative variable that points to how reliable or not the collected data is, and, finally, the value is related to the correspondence or not of the gathered information with the needs of researchers on a particular problem. The complicated issue here is that in each of these five variables there are conflicts and major obstacles that health informatics has not yet been able to solve.

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Regarding the volume, there are two basic problems. The first one, as mentioned above, is that sometimes there is a lot of information available, but it is useless to resolve an issue in question (that is, it lacks real value,) or, alternatively, there is an excess of information supply for a little demand, and there is no way to stop the incessant stream of information that crams the servers (which are not infinite.) The second, on the contrary, is related to the problem of having a poor offer for a high demand. The latter means that the velocity at which the information is being collected, processed, and interpreted is not enough to solve a problem; and it is impossible to push things so that the rate increases because everything does not depend on the researchers but on the machines and the information that comes to the machines.

So there is a long journey to walk still, but there is hope.

Recommended: Big Data, Health Informatics, and the Future of Cardiovascular Medicine