April 29th, 2011 by Iltifat Husain, M.D. in Opinion
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Last month on match day, fourth year medical students from around the country — myself included — found out where we’ll be doing our residencies.
I was extremely excited to find out I matched at my home institution, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, to do my Emergency Medicine residency, a program rich in EM culture and innovation.
Almost immediately after “The Match”, iMedicalApps received emails from fourth year medical students questioning what type of mobile device they should purchase for residency — almost all asking between an iPhone or Android.
We even found out some residency directors were already making suggestions for the incoming residents, choosing the iPhone. Below is an excerpt from one such e-mail:
If you are considering a change in mobile companies, please look carefully at an iphone. There are many apps that we will be using in the near future and it would be a significant benefit to have one.
After much debate between the editors at iMedicalApps, we have came to the conclusion that the choice of smartphone for not only a resident, but for physicians and others in healthcare has now become abundantly clear — the iPhone.
Here’s why. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
April 5th, 2011 by Felasfa Wodajo, M.D. in News
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We have reported in the past on AirStrip, a smartphone and iPad app that allows a mobile doctor to monitor the vital signs of patients in an obstetric ward or an ICU. The reverse, where a fixed doctor monitors multiple remote patients is now entering the mainstream and already making a difference in many patients’ lives.
In a compelling anecdote recently reported in Computerworld, a man experienced cardiac arrest while shopping and was taken to a nearby community hospital. An intensivist, monitoring from an eICU miles away, was immediately consulted. The remote doctor guided the treating physicians as they initiated unfamiliar hypothermia therapy to preserve the brain, and continued to follow the patient remotely throughout his 10 day ICU stay. Happily, the patient had a good outcome and is quoted in the article as an enthusiastic proponent of eICUs. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
March 17th, 2011 by Felasfa Wodajo, M.D. in News
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The regulatory status of medical apps, i.e mobile medical software, has been in limbo for some time now while observers have been watching the FDA for clues as to what role it will play. Clearly, some apps do play a role in guiding physicians in making diagnoses or making treatment decisions. Others simply provide information that would otherwise be available in textbooks or online.
What the FDA will consider a medical device or not has been an important topic, with many clues that it will consider its provenance broadly, as we have reported previously. As of now, only a few medical apps have been granted FDA approval, including AirStrip and MobileMIM.
According to the medical device consulting firm Emergo, the FDA said conclusively that they will be starting regulatory review of medical apps starting in 2011 at the recent FDA townhall meeting on March 10: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
December 30th, 2010 by Iltifat Husain, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Research
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Imagine walking into the room of a patient with ascites and pulling out your iPad (which you were just using to put in orders on another patient), pulling an ultrasound probe out of your pocket, connecting the two, and finding a fluid pocket from which to drain the abdominal fluid.
We’ve already shown how iPad’s can be useful in the OR. Now they, along with other tablets and smartphones, can be applied to bedside diagnostics and therapeutics to enhance patient safety while reducing costs. It’s a pretty exciting prospect being put forth by an mHealth startup called Mobisante. And having won awards at an MIT Enterprise Forum as well as the Mobile Health Expo, others certainly seem to buying in as well.
Mobisante, an mHealth company based in Redmond, WA, has recently been showing a new smartphone peripheral at conferences across the country: An ultrasound probe. According to the MIT Technology Review, the current prototype connects to a Toshiba TG01 smartphone and was originally developed as a laptop peripheral by David Zar, a computer engineer at Washington University in St. Louis. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
December 23rd, 2010 by Felasfa Wodajo, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
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At this past October’s Health 2.0 meeting in San Francisco, many great new ideas about the future of healthcare were presented with a special emphasis on technology. For a great overview check out the keynotes by Jeff Goldsmith & Tim O’Reilly. The conference, organized by Matthew Holt & Indu Subaiya started in 2007 and bills itself as the “the leading showcase of cutting-edge technologies in healthcare.” Those not lucky enough to attend the conferences can follow along on the Health 2.0 blog.
Besides exploring the overarching themes of the future of healthcare in general and health IT in particular, many innovative companies, young and old, gave on-stage demos at the conference. One demonstration in particular stood out for me. This was the demo by the Accelerator Apps Network which showed the future of interconnected companies and applications seamlessly exchanging patient information. The Health 2.0 Accelerator Apps Network is a non-profit industry consortium launched by the Health 2.0 company. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
Last month on match day, fourth year medical students from around the country — myself included — found out where we’ll be doing our residencies.
