Best iPhone / iPod Touch Applications for Pharmacists

Our profession of pharmacy is moving with the increase of many technological inventions, using now these tools to help facilitate the pharmacist for the better of our profession with one goal in mind: the health of the patient which should be the ultimate goal. We also should keep in mind that this kind of technology doesn’t substitute what we have learned. These tools should be used as a supplement of everything we know with the ultimate goal in mind. Here’s an article of applications of iPhone and iPod touch that could be very helpful to us in our professional environment:

The iPhone and iPod Touch have created quite a wave in healthcare, and along with the wave has come a plethora of healthcare applications. The user interface on the iPhone/iPod Touch combined with the ease of accessing applications on Apple’s iTunes store and the relatively inexpensive nature of most applications, have made these devices a favorite among healthcare professionals.

With the volume of healthcare related applications available, I’m surprised at how few I actually use. I spend quite a bit of time surfing the app store looking for new applications that I can apply to pharmacy. I’ve downloaded numerous applications, but have deleted most for one reason or another.

My “research” has led to the list below of applications that I find most useful as a pharmacist.

Drug information:
Lexi-Drugs: No surprise here. I’ve been using Lexi-Comp products for years, and have always found them to be a well designed and informative resource. Their paperback Drug Information Handbook is a mainstay in any hospital pharmacy.

EPocrates Rx: I have this on my iPod touch, but don’t use it very often. In fact, I often forget it’s there. I find that EPocrates is popular among physicians, nurses and outpatient pharmacists, while Lexi-Drugs appear to be king of the acute care pharmacy setting.

Honorable mention:
AHFS Essentials: The Essentials iPhone reference is derived from AHFS Drug Information. While the AHFS reference is supposed to be geared toward pharmacists, I’ve never found it that helpful. The one thing I like is the inclusion of off-label uses.

Drugs.com: Hey, it’s free and is accessed via the internet. I wouldn’t use it as a primary drug reference, but it might be helpful in a pinch.

Calculators:
RxCalc: RxCalc is the only pharmacokinetics calculator currently available for the iPhone. It was designed as a tool for pharmacists to perform aminoglycoside and vancomycin kinetics, including new starts using population parameters and dosage adjustments using levels. It does all the basics in a simple to use, straight forward interface.

MedCalc: This is a free medical calculator with an extensive list of formulas (http://medcalc.medserver.be/iphone_formulas.html ). It’s been around since the first Palm Pilots were popular. I don’t use it often, but considering the price (Free) it is nice to have.

Others:
Skyscape: This is a suite a free applications including, RxDrugs, Archimedes Medical Calculator, and Outline in Clinical Medicine. The application also has a nice little feature called MedAlert that gives you timely little notices like drug recall information. I find it useful on occasion.

BLACKBAG: This application provides medical news across multiple specialties and therapeutic areas. You select “subscriptions” to the specialties you like to read about and BLACKBAG delivers pertinent information on a daily basis.

As I said, these are the applications that I’ve found useful as a pharmacist. If you have a favorite application for the iPhone or iPod touch let me know. I’m always interested in adding stuff to my list.

There are hundreds of healthcare related applications in the iTunes App Store and I encourage you to spend some time browsing. Who knows what you’ll find.

-Jerry Fahrni
Pharmacy Informatics and Technology

Advances In Medical Technology: What Does The Future Hold?

Major challenges and opportunities will arise in the health sector in the future. Research in technology that can be applied to this sector is being carried out by several UPC teams.

Although sophisticated medical technology is already available in health systems in developed countries, further advances are constantly being made. As a result of the addition of medical nanotechnology to existing knowledge of molecular and cellular biology, it seems likely that new, more personalised, more accurate and more rapid diagnostic techniques will be devised in the future, as well as new treatments that are also more personalised and promote regeneration of the organism.

You can read the whole article in the following link:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616080133.htm

Source: ScienceDaily

What is a Personal Health Record (PHR)?

The PHR is a tool that you can use to collect, track and share past and current information about your health or the health of someone in your care. Sometimes this information can save you the money and inconvenience of repeating routine medical tests. Even when routine procedures do need to be repeated, your PHR can give medical care providers more insight into your personal health story. Remember, you are ultimately responsible for making decisions about your health. A PHR can help you accomplish that.

Important points to know about a Personal Health Record:
•You should always have access to your complete health information.
•Information in your PHR should be accurate, reliable, and complete.
•You should have control over how your health information is accessed, used, and disclosed.
•A PHR may be separate from and does not normally replace the legal medical record of any provider.

Medical records and your personal health record (PHR) are not the same thing. Medical records contain information about your health compiled and maintained by each of your healthcare providers. A PHR is information about your health compiled and maintained by you. The difference is in how you use your PHR to improve the quality of your healthcare.

Take an active role in monitoring your health and healthcare by creating your own PHR. PHRs are an inevitable and critical step in the evolution of health information management (HIM). The book “Personal Health Record” assists new users of PHRs in getting started, addressing current PHR trends and processes.

The American Health Information Management Association explain what PHR contain, how it is used, what can you do with it and how it work.

Link: http://www.myphr.com/StartaPHR/what_is_a_phr.aspx

Credit: The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA)

Health Informatics for Medical Librarians

I found an interesting article about the use of health informatics in medical librarians. To view it you have to use the nova ID in the Health Library section of Nova website since I couldn't post in the entirely here. It is in the Journal of American Medicine Association (JAMA). I would post both, the reference in case no one can't find it easily and the link of the article. Here's the reference:

Cleveland, Ana D. and Cleveland, Donald B. Health Informatics for Medical Librarians. New York, NY, Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2009.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5557-0627-2
Link: http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/303/24/2532.full?sid=0fffd911-4d19-421d-9728-8d019f28dda8

Here's an extract from the article:

"Ana and Donald Cleveland are recognized experts in the field of library and information science, with special emphasis in the health sciences. In their new text, Health Informatics for Medical Librarians, they present a comprehensive overview of the field and the important role librarians play in the medical experience. Although Health Informatics for Medical Librarians was written specifically with librarians as its target audience, medical students, residents, and allied health professionals can benefit from the detailed information presented."

Using information technology to reduce rates of medication errors in hospitals

Medication errors is one of the many things that we should be careful in monitoring because us as pharmacists, are probably the most important health practitioner working with medications, and medication errors is the one part that should never exist in our environment. This article explain the use of information technology to reduce the rates of errors in hospitals. Here's the link of the article:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1117776/pdf/788.pdf