Jerry Fahrni

Tag: Smartphone

  • OTC drug interaction analyzer for smartphones

    Medilyzer is a smartphone application designed to provide mobile information and drug interaction checking for various over-the-counter (OTC) medications. The application is available for both the iPhone and Android smartphones, and according to the Medilyzer website a BlackBerry edition is on its way.
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  • PracticeRx by Doctor’s Digest for the iPhone

    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 Mobile for the BlackBerry

    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.

  • Facial recognition via your Android smartphone

    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!

  • Cool Technology for Pharmacy

    This weeks cool technology comes by way of a comment left at RxInformatics.com in response to a recent post I wrote on smartphones and pharmacy practice.

    The author of the comment, @pillguy, is an iPhone fanboy and pharmacy technology guru.

    @pillguy:  “The iPhone certainly has some promising applications related to EHRs. Airstrip is one of the coolest I have seen.

    The smartphone takes PDAs to the next level with access to realtime information. I can see a TheraDoc, Pharmacy OneSource, or Zynx type clinical monitoring/alerting app fit in with the Airstrip suite nicely.”
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  • Are smartphones a viable platform for pharmacy practice?

    It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of tablet PCs. In fact, I can’t imagine life without one. The reason why acute care pharmacists haven’t adopted the tablet PC platform escapes me. My complete opinion on the matter can be found here.

    With the growing need for real-time access to patient data it no longer makes sense to be anchored to a desktop PC at the point-of-care. Couple this with the rapid growth of portable technology and you have a rare opportunity to develop a mobile pharmacy practice in the acute care setting. Whether that model will utilize tablet PCs, UMPCs, WebStations, netbooks or other mobile device remains to be seen.
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  • “What’d I miss?” – Week of December 20th

    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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  • Physician dictation on mobile smartphones

    RTT News: “3M Health Information Systems has released 3M(TM) Mobile Dictation Software, a powerful new application that extends 3M’s dictation, transcription, and speech recognition solutions. Available on the BlackBerry(R) or Windows Mobile(R) platforms, the software offers physicians the freedom of using a single device for phone, email, and dictation, and provides “anytime, anywhere” access via Wi-Fi or 3G wireless service. 3M Mobile Dictation is enhanced with a full range of security features that fulfill HIPAA and hospital-specific guidelines for encryption and authentication.” – Developments such as mobile dictation could decrease the turnaround time between the physician’s spoken word and a readable document, which is one of the biggest issues with dictated notes. With the popularity of smartphones most physicians will have easy access to timely dictation. In theory that is.

    Visit the 3M site for more information.

  • Drug information resources

    Below is a list of drug information resources for both mobile devices and online access. I’ve used most, but not all, of these resources and have found the mobile versions to be a valuable resource when you’re on the go. While it is possible to access the online versions of these resources via a smartphone, the mobile applications are designed with the smaller screen in mind and therefore, in my opinion, work better then the online versions when using a mobile device.

    Let me know if I missed any. Also feel free to comment on your favorite.
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