Tuesday, October 05, 2010

8 mobile medical apps

Your doctor is likely using his mobile device to access healthcare technology in mobile app form as part of your care. Access to accurate, up-to-the-minute information enables healthcare practitioners to provide better treatment at lower costs while saving time, minimizing errors and legal challenge.

Mobclix, the industry's largest mobile ad exchange, mined data that showed record growth in healthcare apps: over 1,399 are currently available, up from just 616 last June.

Some apps are built out of necessity by the doctors, while others are created by knowledgeable developers, to improve patient care and reduce the likelihood of medical errors. 

Utilizing trusted, valuable resources and tools, some of the most popular healthcare technology apps include:
  • Skyscape: Offers customizable content by specialty to medical professionals directly at point of care.  Skyscape’s MedAlert™ offers instant drug updates, journal summaries, clinical trial results and other up-to-the minute information by specialty on your cell phone, smartphone, PDA or desktop.
  • Discoverant: analyze and integrate discrete and continuous data for delivery to mobile devices and is used by many of the world’s life sciences manufacturers including Abbott Labs, Baxter, Biogen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Genzyme, Merck Serono and others for better process understanding.
  • Epocrates: One user called it an “updated PDR at your fingertips;” it also has drug interactions, lab results references, disease information and more than 900,000 healthcare professionals, including one in three U.S. physicians, use Epocrates’ innovative mobile and web-based products to help them reduce medical errors, improve patient care and increase productivity.
  • HealthMap: tracks global disease outbreaks.
  • Medscape Mobile: search 6,000 brand name or generic drugs, check for drug-drug interactions and get medical news.
  • Papers: search and download scientific papers; forward with your notations.
  • PubMed on Tap : access the NIH’s library of more than 19 million citations for biomedical research and email them to your colleagues.
  • Transpara: visual key performance indicators for manufacturing operations.
If your doctor is making decisions about your treatment based on these mobile apps, would you like to know that the information is accurate?  So, the big question: Is the FDA is going to require that it provide clearance before new apps go to market?

Currently, the FDA has no overarching regulation in place for mobile medical apps, despite the fact that they have indicated in the past that under certain circumstances the iPhone may be considered a medical device and therefore regulated as one, according to a report by Brian Dolan on Mobihealthnews.

What do you think? How might the FDA regulate wireless health under its existing system?

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