Nurses play a crucial role in improving the care of a hospital's patients. As technology comes increasingly into play, health apps may be particularly beneficial to improve patient care.
Here are 15 apps to note:
1. Omnio — This app includes medical calculators, symptom diagnosis, medical news, access to scholarly journals as well as prescription drug information. Users get free access to the textbook, The Merck Manual, which will help users diagnose and treat medical disorders.
2. Nurse's Pocket Guide — Nurse's Pocket Guide allows users to select the correct diagnoses and write an effective care plan for patients. Unbound Medicine, the app's creator, just launched the 14th edition which features improved graphics support for the iPhone 6 screens.
3. MediBabble Translator — This app will be helpful when caring for non-English speaking patients. The app has thousands of translated questions and instructions and allows providers to conduct a patient's step-by-step medical history. The app is available in five languages including Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Russian and Haitian Creole.
4. Cortext — Imprivata's app allows nurses to send secure messages to fellow nurses, physicians and patients both inside and outside of the hospital. Nurses can readily use the on any mobile device, enabling efficient communication between healthcare professionals. The time-saving app has been reported to save each clinician an average of 45 minutes each day.
5. DICOM Medical Selfie — Medical Selfie enables both healthcare professionals as well as patients to easily send photos without security issues with their iPhone while maintaining HIPAA compliance and speeding patient/provider communication.
6. DICOM Viewer — This mobile viewer allows nurses to view X-rays as well as mammograms and other medical images on their iPhone or tablet. DICOM enables nurses to readily view images while maintaining proper security and compliance.
7. PatientTouch — PatientSafe Solutions created PatientTouch to give nurses more facetime with their patients. A 12-site study found PatientTouch reduced medical errors by 99 percent. The app has three main services including:
• Positive patient identification through barcode verification at the point of care
• Allows users to communicate with in-network clinicians over a secure system
• Carry and edit patient records without having to leave a patient's bedside
8. Medscape — The mobile app gives nurses access to medical news, FDA announcements, journal articles, conference news as well as point-of-care decision-making tools. Users can also download continuing education coursework spanning more than 1,000 topics.
9. Davis's Drug Guide — The app gives users access to more than 800 drug dosing calculation tools as well as the almost 890 generic drugs' audio pronunciations. Davis's Drug Guide also features information 500 commonly used combination drugs as well as coverage on herbal products and drug dosing considerations for adult, pediatric and geriatric patients.
10. PALS Advisor — PALS Advisor provides information on pediatric drug dosages, neonatal resuscitation, basic life support and other vital information when treating pediatric patients. The app's information is based on the American Heart Association's guidelines.
11. SkyScape Medical Resources – The app features medical information and decision resources for nurses, physicians, nursing students and other healthcare professionals. Currently, more than 2.5 million healthcare professionals use the app, which includes drug information, medical calculators and clinic information on more than 850 topics.
12. Merck Manual — The app contains detailed management as well as diagnosis information. Merck Manual arranged clinically-focused entries based on topic, symptom or section.
13. Canopy Speak — This app has nearly 5,000 translated phrases across 15 different languages, allowing nurses to communicate with non-English speaking patietns. Canopy Speak features an 'over-the-phone' calling tool that lets providers connect directly with live interpreters.
14. Vocera Rounds – This secure mobile app enables nurses to easily manage and monitor the care experience by proactively capturing patient and family feedback at the bedside. Providing real-time communication and reporting of patient comments, questions and compliments, Vocera Rounds helps nurses identify potential service recovery issues, escalate requests as needed, track progress and close the loop quickly.
15. EvidenceCare. EvidenceCare allows providers to communicate with patients while also tracking a patient's episode of care. Nurses can earn CME credits for the time they spend using Evidence Care.
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