Pharmacy Informatics and Technology
Medscape was one of the first online medical communities with a specific section for pharmacists. It was also the first online medical reference site I registered to use back in 1997.
Anyway, Medscape Mobile has been available for the iPhone and BalckBerry devices for quite some time. I received an email today notifying me that it will soon be available for Android devices. This is exciting stuff.
The email content can be seen below.
Mobile computing platforms have become somthing of a hot topic lately, especially in healthcare. What used to be something used almost exclusively by business people and gadget geeks is now mainstream among the average consumer. And to that end, mobile technology is starting to creep into the healthcare industry in large part due to the ever growing list of mobile devices, i.e. smartphones and tablets. Of course the iPad has been at the center of the discussion because it has been embraced by healthcare practitioners and has forced its way into many healthcare IT departments for better or worse. Not a day goes by now when I don’t see several physicians throughout the hospital carrying an iPad. Before the iPad it was the iPhone. See a trend here? I do.
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As usual there were a lot of things that happened during the week, and not all of it was pharmacy or technology related. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff I found interesting. And yes, this is for the week of 10-10-10. Cool!
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Recently I’ve been in bit of a blogging slump. The world of technology suddenly appears a little less exciting. In fact, I find myself thinking of current technology as boring. I read lots of blog posts and articles that refer to new technologies as “revolutionary”, but I haven’t seen much revolutionary technology lately. In fact, most of the new technology is simply an iteration of the same theme; or worse, recycling of an old theme.
Consumer technology is clearly ahead of healthcare with the exception of scanning devices like MRIs, which are pretty cool when you stop to think about what they do. However, some of the most recently vaunted consumer technologies are devices aimed at information consumption like the iPad or devices designed to access data and social media while on the go, i.e. the new crop of smartphones. It’s not really new technology per se, but rather a new application of already available technology.
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As usual there were a lot of things that happened during the week, and not all of it was pharmacy or technology related. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff I found interesting.
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I always find it interesting to see what brings people to my website and what they decided to read once they get here.
Most read posts over the past 7 days:
Top searchterm phrases used over the past 7 days:
I saw this application in the new issue of Hospital Pharmacy. PracticeRx is an application from Doctor’s Digest that provides informational practice tips and various alerts on health care related topics
The registration process is quick, easy and requires that you identify your profession and specialty practice area. There are some screen shots below that show the process. I’m not clear why they want to know your specialty area, but assume the application attempts to tailor the information to your area of interest.
I haven’t had a lot of time to explore PracticeRx, but the overall layout is nice and I found some of the small articles interesting. One annoyance is the pop-up screen that appears when you first log in. I understand the need to advertise, but a little more discretion would be appreciated.
Medscape has been around for quite some time. In fact it was one of the first online communities offering specific information for pharmacists. I started using it sometime around 1997. It hadn’t been around for long at that time, but the content was well done.
I received an email last week introducing the availability of Mobile Medscape for the BlackBerry; it was previously available for the iPhone and iPod touch.
According to the email:
> FASTER & LARGER Drug Reference
Look up info in seconds for 7,000+ prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) brands and generics, including herbals and supplements.
> FASTER Interaction Checker
Quickly check interactions between drugs, herbals, and supplements – input as many drug combinations as you want.
> IN-DEPTH Medical News
Review the latest medical news in your specialty right in the app – news updated daily across 30 specialty areas.
> EASIER Navigation
Our app is designed to make it easier to look up and save drug information, read medical news, and access features.
The application is completely free and can be found at www.medscape.com/blackberry.
I think it’s great that Medscape Mobile is available for the BlackBerry now, but I have to wonder what the demand for such an application will be with so many physicians, nurses and pharmacists going to the iPhone. It would be interesting to see the download numbers for Medscape Mobile for each platform.
More information on the general content of Medscape Mobile can be found here.
VentureBeat: “Recognizr uses FaceLib, a mobile face recognition library from Polar Rose, which is available for Android and iPhone. FaceLib can recognize faces in photo or video but, in common with other facial recognition products, is more accurate for photos. Recognizr also uses Polar Rose’s server-side solution FaceCloud because you can’t store profiles of all potential matches in the phone — although recognizing people who are already in the phone’s address book can be handled locally on the device.” – The application from Polar Rose combined with the interface from TAT (The Astonishing Tribe) pulls up information associated with the recognized faze from places like Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.
Wouldn’t this be a great application to use in healthcare? Imagine a patient rolls in through the emergency department; can’t answer your questions because of a language barrier, is unconcious, is too young or simply can’t speak secondary to injuries. The physician grabs his/her smartphone and uses it to “recognize” the patient and pull up their medical records. Now that’s some cool technology!
