Kathy Holloway helps you navigate the world of apps, Apple and Androids.
The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, would be amazed at its transformation into the current smartphone technology. Today, the smartphone is a sophisticated tool that connects people to a world of information.
A recent eHealth and nursing conference in Europe noted that approximately 12 per cent of the global population’s own smartphones. Not surprisingly, teens, young adults and professionals with higher incomes use smartphones more than older adults, with a rise to 1.4 billion smartphone users globally by 2015 predicted. In New Zealand recent data indicate smartphone usage at around 12 to 16 per cent of phone users.
What does this mean for you as a nurse? There are two major reasons for you to be aware of the impact of the smartphone. First, patients are using them to download medical ‘apps’ (mobile applications) to monitor their own health and for health information. And second, nurses are increasingly using smartphone applications to access information more easily. A recent survey of 1000 nurses in the US found that nearly 75 per cent owned a smartphone or tablet computer, such as an iPad. New Zealand nurses have not been surveyed on this.
Mobile applications (‘apps’) are software programmes for smartphones and other handheld computing devices. Apps let you perform functions similar to those you would do on a desktop or laptop computer, such as looking up drug information. In healthcare, the most commonly downloaded mobile apps are clinical references (also known as point-of-care (POC) references), such as electronic drug manuals, drug calculators, tools to facilitate analysis of lab and diagnostic studies, and differential diagnosis guides.
Some medical apps can potentially free nurses from workstations by providing point-of-care information, access to lab results (complete with reference material for normal values) and now, in the US, medical imaging. Patients are using smartphone apps for medical devices – for example, tracking trends in blood pressure – for diagnostic tools and for emergency care support.
Not all apps are available for all mobile operating systems. Most new mobile apps are being developed for Apple’s iOS mobile operating system, and can be found in the iTunes online app store. Other online sources for specific operating systems include the Android Market; together with iTunes, they cover the two biggest operating systems for smartphones worldwide.
How do you find apps? First check your device’s app store. Search major publishers’ websites. For example, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins and McGraw Hill are traditional book publishers that also have mobile apps. You also can put the appropriate keywords (for example, “drug infusion calculator”) into a search engine. iTunes has more, with almost 7800 paid or free medical applications compared to the at least 1000 on the Android site. Also check out Medscape MD. It is often useful to look at the most highly rated apps to begin with and then you swap and impress other colleagues with your latest acquisition – with awareness comes choice.
ONLINE RESOURCES:
Journal of Medical Internet Research
This US-based site hosts a peer-reviewed, free, open access journal (HTML articles only) with a broad international editorial board. The Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR; Medline-abbreviation: J Med Internet Res) was founded in 1999 and claims to be “the first international scientific peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of research, information and communication in the health care field using internet and intranet-related technologies; a broad field, which is nowadays called ‘eHealth’”.
The journal scope acknowledges the highly interdisciplinary nature of eHealth and has papers from a wide variety of disciplines – the current issue includes papers on mobile health, evaluation of the use of smartphones and virtual worlds for patient support. There are clear guidelines for author submission and a promised four-week turnaround time for manuscripts. [Site accessed 20 November 2011 and last updated 28 September 2011.]
Medscape Reference
http://reference.medscape.com/nurses
Medscape Reference is the most authoritative and accessible point-of-care medical reference for physicians and health care professionals. All content is available free of charge, both online and via mobile devices – download the app from here direct to your smartphone. Medscape Reference claims to represent the expertise and practical knowledge of top physicians and pharmacists from leading academic medical centres in the US and worldwide. Medscape Reference provides comprehensive coverage across more than 30 medical specialties and is composed of the following areas: diseases and conditions; procedures; drugs; anatomy; best evidence; case studies; and image collections.
Medscape places itself as the leading online destination for healthcare professionals for clinical information and clinical reference tools. It is currently rated in the top 10 on iTunes. [Site accessed 20 November 2011 and last updated 17 November 2011.]
Kathy Holloway is associate dean of the Faculty of Health Education and Social Sciences at Whitireia Community Polytechnic.
