NEJM now optimized for iPhone and Android. Visitors to http://NEJM.org running iOS/Android will receive mobile version of site.

If you are a Windows phone, Blackberry or webOS user then I guess you are out of luck. While I suppose it is normal to support the major mobile platforms i.e. iOS and Android, surely the web programmers can also push the mobile site to others like Windows and webOS users? Unless I am mistaken it is a question of recognising the user agent accessing the website.

In any case, I have included the NEJM link to our list of Mobile friendly Medical websites

Here’s what the page looks like on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 running Android 3.2:

iOS users can also install the free iOS NEJM This Week app

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

NEJM is mobile friendly again

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Not all doctors and nurses are happy with an iPad in the hospital setting

Description:

The NICE Guidance App provides up-to-date access to all NICE Guidance
For the first time, you can access guidance from NICE whilst on the move through NICE’s new, official app. It is aimed at doctors, nurses, medical students and other healthcare professionals, as well as those with public health responsibilities, including in local government.
It is the first ever app to contain public health guidance, including topics such as smoking cessation, promoting physical activity, behaviour change and preventing diabetes. It contains all of NICE’s clinical guidelines, including those on COPD, hypertension, stroke, chronic heart failure, atrial fibrillation, head injury, depression, ovarian cancer, UTI in children, anxiety and autism. It also contains all NICE’s technology appraisals, interventional procedures guidance, medical technology and diagnostics guidance.

Read the review in iMedicalApps

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Updated: Free Medical Android App listing

Here’s a nice video review I found on Youtube from Netbooknews.com:

The HP Touchpad is now left for use at home and running only webOS (as it was designed to be). While ICS on the Touchpad worked decently well for an alpha build, it still had some bugs which made it cumbersome, particularly an unstable Wifi connection.

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Down sizing my tablet – fun with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7

This was a 5 star application before, but I hate the new interface. First, it looks terribly pixelated on my tablet, while it looked fine before. Also, it used to work in landscape mode at the main menu, now the main menu will only work in portrait mode, but it at least allows me to go back to landscape in the formulary. Also, on the main menu, the animations are choppy on both tablet and phone. Please, optimize this for tablets. It looks awful.

Henry has a point about the menu working only in portrait mode. It’s a little annoying and I wish Epocrates will fix this and allow auto-rotation of the main menu to landscape as well. Otherwise in my opinion it’s not looking too bad on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 running Honeycomb (yes, I have a new Android toy but more about that later).

You can download Epocrates for Android from the Google Play Store

Need more free Android medical apps? Check out our list here.

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Epocrates for Android updated

Looks like an ordinary labcoat right? Upper pocket holds your torch and pens nicely and two conventional looking lower front and left pockets. But it’s not all that it appears to be.

There are two upper inside pockets which can fit smartphones or devices like an iPod Touch. Handy if you have say more than one phone to carry around or if you already have a phone but need to carry an iPod Touch for those iOS medical apps. The pockets could also store battery packs or bluetooth headsets.

There are also two large inner pockets at the bottom if you want to carry around an iPad. It will also easily fit any 10″ tablet e.g. HP Touchpad or Samsung Galaxy 10 Tab. The labcoat has an inner extra layer of cloth in the front so the stitching will not show on the outside. I am quite pleased that there are no bulges so one is not noticeably carrying a tablet in the labcoat though it is a tad heavier but one gets used to it. I’d take this any day rather than having to carry around a tablet in my hands especially when rounding.

Even the front bottom pockets have extra inner pockets for you to put stuff like extra pens or even IV cannulae!

Specs
Material: synthetic/cotton mix
Total number of pockets: 9
Cost: about USD 25 (hey, this is Asia)

Is this for sale? No, not from me. I am not going into the eLabcoat business but I have suggested to the tailor that her company consider Internet orders.

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

My new eLabcoat

SLIC is an evidence-based decision supporting system on the (surgical) treatment of subaxial cervical spine injury. It is based on the SLIC scale described by Vaccaro et al (Spine, 2007) and the evidence-based algorithms provided by Dvorak et al (Spine, 2007)

It might be a niche app but it’s free and I’m sure will find a place in some ER doc, neurosurgeon or orthopod’s iPhone/iPad.
Do note that the Free medical iPhone and iPad apps listing is iPhone and iPad friendly and the mobile views with iTune store links will allow you to click and install the apps right on your device without having to synch with iTunes on your desktop or laptop.

iTunes Link
Read the Review in iMedicalapps

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Free medical iPhone and iPad apps listing updated

Description
The NEJM iPad Edition combines the best of the print and digital resources of the New England Journal of Medicine to deliver a truly enhanced, unique reading experience. Each weekly iPad Edition issue brings together all content from NEJM print issues plus audio, video and other multimedia features from NEJM.org in an integrated, easy-to-navigate format. The app is free to download. All users can view a fully functional free issue, preview the table of contents for each issue and read Online First articles.

*** Individual NEJM and NEJM.org subscribers enjoy free access to the NEJM iPad Edition issues associated with the term of their subscription.

The NEJM iPad Edition allows you to
- Download the new issue every Thursday
- Store all your downloaded issues in your personal library
- Watch Videos in Clinical Medicine
- Listen to the audio summary for each issue and full-text audio for Clinical Practice articles
- Capture and save article notes – and share via email
- Bookmark articles, images and figures
- Share articles via email, Facebook and Twitter

Non-subscribers can optionally subscribe to the NEJM iPad edition for $14.99 per month or $5.99 per issue.

How useful will a dedicated iPad edition be over browsing the NEJM site? I suppose it depends on the capability of the tablet’s browser. The iPad’s Safari lacks flash capability but other platforms e.g. Android and webOS do not have this limitation. Given the ubiquity of the iPad however, this will enable NEJM to distribute it’s content to the huge number of physicians using iPads currently.

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

NEJM – iPad edition

The use of mobile tablet computers was associated with improvements in perceived and actual efficiency among residents, according to the findings of a single-institution study.
Bhakti K. Patel, MD, from the Department of Pulmonary/Critical Care, University of Chicago, Illinois, and colleagues published their findings in a research letter published in the March 12 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The authors note that medical residents spend much of their time working on indirect care tasks such as updating patient medical charts. “Unfortunately, the implementation of electronic health records actually increases time in indirect care and the need for available computer workstations to advance care,” the authors write. “These trends, coupled with the growing information needs for patient care, have led to more time spent locating a computer or working on the computer at the expense of time at the bedside or at conference.”
More than three quarters (78%) of the surveyed residents reported that the use of iPads (Apple) improved their workflow efficiency, with an average savings of approximately an hour a day. In addition, 68% of the house staff reported that delays in patient care were avoided because of iPad usage.
The authors provided iPads to 115 medical residents with an explanation of how to use this device to access medical records, publications, and paging systems. The authors compared the efficiency of residents before and 4 months after providing iPads, and they examined the electronic medical record to assess all patient care orders placed in the first 24 hours after patient admission before and after iPad distribution.

It’s not so much the iPad (or any tablet) per se – it’s the access to the EHR which matters. EHRs by supporting mobile devices will empower users with quicker and more efficient access. Any centre deploying an EHR with inadequate hardware support is simply going to make EHR use more inefficient.

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

iPads improve efficiency for Residents

The most obvious one is the adoption of smartphones and tablets

By the end of 2011, Nielsen expected half of the US population to own a smartphone. At the end of 2011 62 percent of 25 to 34 year olds had smartphones. About 53 percent of 35 to 44 year olds did. The fastest growing age group for smartphone adoption in the past year was the 55 to 64 year old age group. Adoption among this group went from 17 percent to 30 percent a year later. Similarly the iPad has had the fastest adoption rate of any consumer electronics device in history. We know that now more than 80 percent of physicians in the US have smartphones. Between 30 percent and 50 percent have tablets now depending on who you ask.

Personally I feel the adoption of mobile medical apps could be faster. Amongst my colleagues may use smartphones because it it trendy but when you ask them what medical apps they use, it’s either none or minimal usage. They might as well use a dumb phone!

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

12 trends for mobile health in 2012

If Windows 8 phones can run my medical web apps, I might be tempted to get one.

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Video: Windows 8 vs iPad

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Medical web apps: Server migration