12 Popular Mobile Medical Apps

3D4Medical's Muscle System (Head and Neck)

This free iPhone app shows a ton of views of the muscle system. You can click to zoom in, rotate, and "cut away" muscle layers to see underneath. The app zooms in on specific muscle groups and drills down layer by layer. As you rotate the image you can see side views of the muscle system as well as back and front views. The app tells you what nerves innervate the muscles, it will test you and tell you what each muscle is, where the muscle originates and where it attaches, the muscle's activity (what it does), and its innervation. 3D4Medical.com has several other iPhone apps including iMuscle, which lets users zoom in and identify muscles, then shows strengthening exercises for specific muscles or muscle groups. It also has iPhone apps for the cardiovascular, genitourinary, skeletal, nervous, digestive, and other muscle systems. iPad versions are available for several systems including the nervous, cardiovascular, and digestive systems. Some of 3D4Medical's apps are free, but the more specialized programs are paid.

iHealth Labs Blood Pressure Monitoring System

iHealth's mobile blood pressure monitoring system equips iPhone, iPad and iPod users with a cuff blood pressure monitor and a portable battery-powered base that serves as an alternative to the charging base for Apple IOS devices. Patients can view their blood pressure readings, record changes in readings over time and make reports. They can share their results with doctors, family members and other caregivers via email, and can also discuss with other hypertensive patients and caregivers on social media Twitter and Facebook. The monitoring cuff and base cost $99, and the accompanying app is free.

AirStrip Technology's AirStrip Cardiac System

When a physician is caring for a patient who is hospitalized for a heart attack, he needs the latest information even if he can't be at the patient's bedside. This AirStrip Technologies app provides near real-time ECG data directly to the iPad or iPhone. Most physicians view ECGs remotely by watching scanned ECG strips or desktop access. AirStrip Cardiology offers more options. AirStrip also has a mobile app for remote access to bedside FHR monitors. With AirStrip OB, physicians can view the latest FHR strips on their iPhone or iPad.

Human Atlas by Blausen Medical

Need a close-up of how the circulatory or respiratory systems work for your patients? Blausen Medical's Human Atlas is designed for just that purpose. It offers full-color, 3D animations and illustrations of the various parts of the human body. The atlas also offers voice-over narration and is available for Apple's iOS, Research In Motion's BlackBerry, and Google's Android operating systems, as well as the iPad and RIM's PlayBook tablets. It has two volumes, each with 150 topics. It has 15 sub-atlases that focus on specific areas, such as the circulatory system, pediatrics, and orthopedics. The smartphone app costs $19.99, while the tablet app costs $29.99. Sub-atlases cost $3.99 to $4.99 for smartphone apps and $8.99 to $9.99 for tablet apps.

WellDoc's Diabetes Management System

WellDoc's diabetes management system provides real-time virtual coaching for people with type 2 diabetes. They input their medication and carbohydrate intake, blood sugar and other readings into mobile devices such as smartphones, laptops and tablets, and behavioral algorithms provide automatic real-time virtual coaching to patients based on their data, including reminders for relevant tests, medications, lifestyle adjustments and dietary suggestions. These suggestions help deal with high or low blood sugar readings based on the patient's condition and treatment plan. The data is sent to the patient's doctor regularly to help fill the information gap that occurs between follow-up visits and facilitate discussions on disease management. Multiple health care plans provide this tool to their patients at no charge.

DrChrono's Electronic Medical Record System

DrChrono, an iPad-based electronic medical record system, allows doctors to enter patient histories and physical exam results, prescribe electronic prescriptions and patient scheduling, convert medical speeches to text, and add X-rays and other images. It also provides templates for the SOAP documentation method, a subjective, objective, assessment, and planning method traditionally used in many medical institutions to track the course of patient treatment. DrChrono can also use the iPad's video recording function, for example, allowing clinicians to add live photos of skin lesions or videos of gait abnormalities or facial tics. DrChrono ranges from free to about $800 per month, depending on the features selected by the user.

Epocrates Deluxe Edition

This app provides information on thousands of prescription drugs and hundreds of over-the-counter drugs, as well as other features such as medical calculators. This is one of the most widely used medical apps, and almost every doctor uses it. It is available for iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Palm, and Windows Mobile. Epocrates RX is a free basic version. The enhanced version starts at $99 per year. The hardcover Deluxe version, which costs $199 per year, provides evidence-based information on treatment, treatment guidelines, lab preparation and interpretation, a medical dictionary, and ICD-9 and CPT codes. You usually start with a search, such as skin conditions, melanoma, and then you can see pictures, get information about causes and related conditions, and then you can drill down to get more information about these conditions. It also provides guidance on what information to look for based on medical history, what tests to do, and what treatment options to choose for each body type of patient.

CollabRX's Melanoma Targeted Therapy Finder

The Melanoma Targeted Therapy Finder is a free, web-based decision support application that helps cancer patients and oncologists determine the best tests, treatments and clinical trials for a person's skin cancer type. The app, developed in collaboration between software services company CollabRX and the American Society of Clinical Oncology, runs on mobile devices including iPhones and iPads. It asks doctors and patients a series of questions and then helps them narrow down promising treatments and clinical trials based on a patient's specific melanoma subtype and other characteristics.

Nuance Communications' Dragon Mobile Medical Recorder

No time to dictate? This mobile recording app lets doctors dictate reports on their iPhones and upload them wirelessly to Nuance's speech recognition transcription platform. The mobile recording app works using Nuance's eScription speech recognition engine, which transcribes the material and creates a draft report that can be incorporated into the electronic medical record. In the past, poor audio quality has prevented doctors from using mobile phones to dictate. Nuance says Dragon recorder overcomes that problem and provides more reliable dictation. The recording app uses Wi-Fi and 3G networks to upload the doctor's dictation for processing. The Dragon Medical Mobile Recorder app can be downloaded for free on iTunes. A subscription to Nuance's eScription platform is required, and pricing depends on usage.

Spanish-English Medical Dictionary from Word Magic Software

This $5.99 app is a must-have for every healthcare provider who provides care to Spanish-speaking patients, which could include a large number of medical professionals. Word Magic's dictionary is available for iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, HP-Palm, Android, and Windows Mobile. This isn't your average translator, offering over 235,000 entries, over 331,000 translations, and 232,000 synonyms. While it's really meant to do translations, as a bonus you'll see definitions in both languages. These translations aren't just written, the app offers audio translations, too. The dictionary covers a variety of Spanish dialects, including International, European, Latin American, and Mexican.

Informed Publishing's EMS ACLS Guide

No doctor has time to look at an app during an emergency, but this $5.99 app is a great preparation and reference guide for any medical-related emergency, from intubation to triage, from advanced cardiac lifesaving to poisons, from overdose to respiratory distress, from stroke to spinal cord injury. It has Spanish translations, pediatric assessments, and reference ranges for lab tests.

UpToDate

UpToDate is an online database of medical information, essentially an online library of textbooks for about 17 medical specialties. It is updated approximately every three months, which makes it stand out from print textbooks, which are typically updated every three to five years. Although it does not have a standalone mobile app, it can be accessed through any mobile device with an internet connection. The app is priced from $195 to $495 per year for individual licenses, and group website licenses are also available.