Electronic Health Reporter

Guest post by Cassie Phillips, an online security blogger, who writes about the best Internet privacy apps.

App technology is revolutionizing the world. The sudden rise to popularity of the smartphone and tablet has put more power in our hands and more information at our fingertips than ever before. This has opened up a world of opportunities in many different fields, and medicine is no exception to that rule.

For health professionals, the vast quantity of ever-changing knowledge required to do the job properly has always been one of the most trying elements of the work. Now, there are many apps available that allow quick and easy access to a wealth of information at the push of a button. Here are just seven of the many offered.

Medscape

Designed and brought to you by the creators of WebMD, this app has been hailed as one of the best for reference and diagnosis assistance. Available for free download for both Android and iOS, it is an incredible tool with many features including drug identification and information, in depth patient care tutorials, disease and condition referencing and up-to-date medical education courses. This app is a vital medical resource for medical students and professionals alike and has a huge part to play in the electronic modernization of healthcare.

3D4 Medical

This clever piece of software allows you to explore anatomy like never before. With intricate on-screen models of all parts and elements of human anatomy, this is a valuable tool that gives healthcare professionals a chance to take a look inside the body. It’s completely anatomically accurate and uses impressive 3D technology.

Alongside this, it has features to customize body parts and add labels, which makes it a perfect assistant for keeping track of cases. It also offers tutorials and introductory anatomy lessons, which are great for medical students or anyone wanting to refresh their knowledge.

ReferralMD

When working in healthcare, it’s not just the patients that you have to worry about. All treatments come at a cost and as much as many of us would like that not to be the case, it’s a fact that isn’t going to change anytime soon. Trying to balance treatment costs can be a nightmare but ReferralMD is a great app that cuts your budget dramatically through one simple idea—optimizing referral communication. By moving all referrals to this app, a vast amount of money is saved through paper and fax machine expenses. It also ensures immediate processing of the request, which avoids handling costs.

Doximity

This app is, simply put, a social network for healthcare workers. Claiming that over 60 percent of US healthcare professionals are registered, this is by far the largest network of MDs and other staff that exists on the internet. This makes it the perfect platform for networking and making new links as well as learning and gaining information from many highly respected sources.

It also rapidly increases the ability to communicate across teams and different cases, which is an undeniable advantage as the installation of Obamacare has left hospital waiting rooms busier than ever. Not only is this app available online, and for both Android and iOS, it’s now supported by the Apple Watch, making connecting with other professionals quickly easier than ever.

QxMD Apps

QxMD offers a range of medical apps, the most popular of which are Read and Calculate. The Read app is perhaps the most comprehensive collection of medical literature available for Android and iOS. With access to many of the major journals, regular topic reviews and frequently updated with new releases it’s an amazing resource for all your medical literature needs.

Similarly, Calculate is an equally useful healthcare calculator app. Not only does it work in the same way as a traditional medical calculator, it also helps you make decisions about risk and diagnosis through highlighting useful tools that could help you make the right choice. Both of these apps are free to download and are highly useful to anyone practicing medicine.

Virtual Practice for Doctors

This app is an extremely handy way to communicate with patients out of hours. Its many features allow you to develop a doctor/patient relationship that is essential for providing good health care. Not only does it allow for video consultations over the phone, it also has options for appointment management, patient health record access and personalized remote healthcare monitoring. This means you can stay up-to-date with the patient’s condition and get a much wider perspective when trying to make a diagnosis.

Alongside this key benefit, the app also has the potential to decrease the congestion of doctors surgeries as simple patient questions can be answered via the app rather than requiring them to come in and make an appointment.

ExpressVPN

Although the move to smartphone technology to improve patient care and diagnosis brings numerous benefits for doctors and healthcare professionals, it also brings a risk that is not as considered as perhaps it should be. Doctor/patient confidentiality is a big part of the practice and accessing patient information from your mobile phone leaves it very vulnerable to malicious hackers. Fortunately, ExpressVPN has you covered. This Virtual Private Network app allows you to connect to public networks whilst encrypting your information and ensuring it can’t be viewed or stolen by any prying eyes.

There use of smartphone technology has revolutionized the health service and this is only the beginning! The potential of the use of apps in healthcare is unlimited and set to grow even further over the coming years. The above apps are just a few of many that are on offer. If you know of any other great healthcare apps or have used any of the above then be sure to share your experiences in the comments below.