Mobile Apps to Improve Quality, Value at Point-of-Care for Inpatients
HM15 Presenters: Roger Yu, MD, Cheng-Kai Kao, MD, Anuj Dalal, MD, and Amit Pahwa, MD
Summary: The panel of high-tech doctors helped a standing-room-only crowd navigate numerous apps to be used at point-of-care [PDF, 458 kb]. Groups worked through case studies utilizing applicable mobile apps. Examples and most useful apps, including occasional user reviews, follow:
Provider-to-Provider Communication, HIPAA secure
- Doximity.
- HIPAA-chat.
- Pros: HIPAA-secure, real-time communication.
- Cons: Both parties must be on app to securely communicate.
Provider-to-Patient Communication, Language Translators
- Google Translate: multiple platforms, free, 90 languages.
- MediBabble: iOS only, free, seven languages, dedicated medical application.
Diagnostic Apps for Providers
- Calculate by QxM.
- PreOpEval14: iOS only.
- PreopRisk Assessment: Android only.
- ASCVD Risk Estimator.
- MDCalc.com in addition to usual formulas, great abg-analyzer (online version only).
- AnticoagEvaluator.
- epocrates: calculators.
Click here for a PDF of useful apps and resource links [PDF, 177 kb]
Resources for Evidence-Based Practice
- ACP Clinical Guidelines.
- ACP Smart Medicine.
- Read by QxMD.
- UpToDate.
- AHRQ ePPS: identifies clinical preventive services.
- epocrates.
Patient Engagement Apps
- Medication reminders: MediSafe, CareZone.
- Pharmaceutical costs: Walmart, Target Healthful, GoodRx.
- Proper inhaler usage: User Inhalers App.
- Smoking cessation: QuitSTART.
HM15 takeaways
- Apps are available to providers and patients to enhance quality, value, and compliance;
- Before “prescribing” any app to patients, vet the application yourself; and
- Use apps to supplement your clinical practice, but be wary of becoming over-reliant upon them, to the detriment of long-term memory. In order to utilize information in critical-thinking processes, it must be stored in long-term memory. TH
