Scientific American has a short video titled “Mobile Medicine” which highlights a few mobile apps on the iPhone. According to the video, medical apps are one of the fastest growing areas for development, with over 2000 applications and growing.
- ClinicalTrials app – helps physicians identify clinical trials for patients to participate in
- PubSearchPlus – portable version of PubMed to find the latest research evidence
- AsthmaMD – mobile diary for asthma patients to record data that can be used for research and practice
- Islet – a mobile diabetes app to log information
- iCut DNA – a database of DNA sequences and enzymes
- HealthMap – takes local news reports and maps “outbreaks” near you
- VaxTrack – record and track your immunization info and find local clinics
- PocketCPR – shows you how to perform CPR
- Thinklabs Stethoscope app – see and record heart sounds when connected to a digital stethoscope [here’s a link to a
- Cannabis by Ajnag – helps you find a local medical marijuana dispensing clinic
This is an interesting list and I learned about some very interesting apps that I will definitely check-out. PubSearchPlus and HealthMap come to mind. I will check-out a few of the others (assuming they are available in Canada and aren’t prohibitively expensive to try).
There seems to be an increasing interest in the mobile device platform (mostly the iPhone). I expect to see some more interesting apps in the near future because of the iPad*.
Too bad that the bant app wasn’t profiled along with islet for diabetes management [here’s my short write-up on bant].
* Author’s note: I got a chance to try out an iPad and plan to share some thoughts about the device and its potential in health care later this week.