The Best Medical iPhone Apps for Doctors and Med Students

There are 1,544 medical iPhone apps (and counting) in the App Store. Unless you know the name of the app you’re looking for, it is very time consuming to sort through them all. For example, do you need a Drug Reference guide for your iPhone? Good luck, there are over 50 of them.

So, we decided to do the hard work. We hand picked a list of the top medical apps and separated them into 18  categories. Our approach was straightforward: remove the irrelevant results (e.g. “iPee”  and “Pimp My Ultrasound”), tag the rest with category names, sort by most popular and voilà. By the end, we went from 1,544 apps down to 55.

For reference, we discovered that only 733 apps could really be used in medical education or a professional health care setting. The rest were consumer-oriented applications (i.e. personal fitness, memory games, wellness, etc). We are disappointed that there are not yet a critical mass of iPhone apps that access the leading electronic health record (EHR) systems.

For all you app junkies (or those who simply have too much time on your hands), we’ve included the full list of 733 apps at the end of this post. You can view them in a Google Doc spreadsheet.

All-in-One

Medscape – Free – Features continually updated drug reference tools, specialty-specific medical news and mobile CME, physician & pharmacy directories and more. Save time when making decisions at the point-of-care with our fast and easy-to-use application.

Lexi-Comp Individual Application – Free – This application includes 30-days of access to all 32 databases (pharmacogenomics, medical abbreviations, protocols for medical emergencies, etc) Lexi-Comp offers for the iPhone and iPod touch. Hundreds of images, charts, and tables are available.

Skyscape’s Medical Bag – $1.99 – A highly useful collection of clinical tools including: over 30 Life Support information topics and guidelines; 50 Lab tests; over 185 Medical Calculators, and; continual feed of breaking medical news and information.

Anatomical Diagrams

Human Body 3D Anatomy – $3.99 – This application includes all the major systems of the human body, showing them with complete information using 2D graphics, extensive information and 3D animations too.

Muscle Head and Neck System – Free – This app is a high-end learning/reference application covering the muscles of the head and neck.

iAnatomy – $0.99 – Great for learning cross sectional anatomy as a student or for a quick refresher as a professional. Includes over 60 actual CT scans of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis. Separate tabs provide views of bone, muscle, organ, or blood vessel labels on each image.

Calculators

MedCalc (Medical Calculator) – Free – MedCalc is a free medical calculator, that gives you easy access to a wide array of medical formulas and scores. Includes Detailed information and bibliographic references for each formula.

Medical Calculator – $0.99 – Medical Calculator is an iPhone and iPod touch app that helps doctors and nurses compute useful formulas and equations. MedCalc supports US and SI units. Over 200,000 installs worldwide.

ABG – Free – A multipurpose medical calculator with functionality to: analyse arterial blood gasses; output a recommended FIO2, given a determined pO2, FIO2 and a desired pO2, and; perform hemodynamic calculations utilizing the Fick principle.

Calculate by QXMD – Free – From the maker of the iPhone apps ‘The ECG Guide’ and ‘Pedi STAT’ comes ‘Calculate’, a next-generation clinical calculator and decision support tool, freely available to the medical community.

Cardiology

The ECG Guide – $4.99 – The most comprehensive ECG app in the app store, containing up-to-date guideline based content with over 200 illustrative high resolution examples of common and uncommon ECGs.

iMurmur – $0.99 – Teaches you how to recognize and diagnose heart murmurs. The heart sounds are presented in a rapid quiz format and are organized by clinical relevance emphasizing sounds you will encounter most frequently.

STAT Cardiac Clearance – Free – An educational tool that guides the user through specific elements of the ACC/AHA 2007 guidelines on perioperative cardiovascular evaluation and care for noncardiac surgery. Includes step-by-step cardiac evaluation and care algorithm for noncardiac surgery based on active clinical conditions, known cardiovascular disease, or cardiac risk factors for patients 50 years of age or greater.

Dentists

Orasphere – Free – Using Orasphere dental educational videos saves you time, reduces liability and increases patient case acceptance for your dental practice. Easily view Orasphere dental videos on your iPod or iPhone and start educating your patients today.

3Dteeth - $1.99 – This application includes: general information about teeth and mouth; 3D images of each tooth; dental caries, dental disease, causes, and; dental implants, kinds, benefits of dental implants.

DAT AudioLearn – $14.99 – DAT AudioLearn is a complete audio study guide and test prep for the high yield science portion of the Dental Admission Test (DAT)

Clinical Decision Support

Diagnosauras DDX – $0.99 – This reference tool helps healthcare professionals perform differential diagnosis with speed and confidence at the point of care. With Diagnosaurus you can quickly search over 1,000 diagnoses by organ system, symptom, disease or view all entries.

ACC Pocket Guidelines – Free – This clinical practice support tool set from the American College of Cardiology Foundation includes the Transthoracic and Transesophageal Echocardiography (TTE/TEE) Appropriateness Criteria Tool which provides a list of common uses of echocardiography and a decision support application that helps guide physicians in the ordering of SPECT MPI for the detection and risk assessment of coronary artery disease.

Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy – $49.99 – The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy is packed with essential information on diagnosing and treating medical disorders to help health care professionals and medical students deliver the best care.

Dictionary

Taber’s Medical Dictionary – $49.95 – Contains over 60,000 terms, 1,000 photos and more than 600 Patient Care Statements. Also included are medical abbreviations, symbols and units of measurement, immunization schedules, nursing diagnoses, and more.

Eponyms (for students) – Free – Brings a short description of more than 1,600 common and obscure medical eponyms (e.g., Rovsing’s sign, Virchow’s node) to your iPhone or iPod touch. A perfect tool to quickly look up the meaning of any eponym.

Medical Terminology and Abbreviations Quick Reference – $1.99 – Terminology is broken down into prefixes, stem words and suffixes, and then alphabetically. Abbreviations are stored in alphabetical order as well, and both have a quick scroll on the right side to instantly skip to the letter you’re looking for.

Drug Reference

Epocrates Rx – Free – A drug reference guide providing monographs for 3,300 brand name and generic drugs. This app includes information on dosing, adverse reactions, interactions, pharmacology, pricing and images of the medication. This is the #1 ranked free medical app in the App store.

Skyscape RxDrugs: Dosing Companion – Free – Provides dosing guidelines on thousands of commonly used brand and generic drugs and now includes nearly 400 integrated weight-based drug dosing calculators.

Davis’s Drug Guide – $49.95 – Delivers up-to-date, comprehensive, and practical information on over 5,000 trade name and generic drugs. This powerful app contains everything you need to provide premium care to your patients including information on dosing and administration, safety, interactions, patient teaching, and much more.

Eyecare

EyeChart – Free – A Snellen Eye Chart is an eye chart used by eye care professionals to measure visual acuity. While the classic Snellen chart is typically placed at 20′ or 6m, pocket-sized versions such as this one can provide useful screens for rough visual acuity.

Eye Test – $0.99 – A portable testing tool for near visual acuity, color test and visual illusion. It’s very useful for people who need to do visual acuity testing routinely.

EyeChart RandomEyes – $0.99 – A unique application that produces an infinite number of randomized eye charts to offer a rough but useful screen of visual acuity. Simply tap the image of the die to randomize the entire eye chart, or touch an individual line on the chart to randomize that series of letters.

Flashcards/Games

Diagnose the Disease Game – Free – Race against the clock to diagnose the disease and test your knowledge! This game challenges you to identify diseases as the images are revealed. Physicians, nurses, medical students or others interested in medicine will find this game interactive, educational and fun.

Speed Bones Lite – Free – A must have game if you are tackling anatomy for high school, university or medical school. It is more captivating than flashcards and practice mode allows you to learn specific regions without doing all the previous levels. Review mode lets you replay all the mistakes you’ made in the last game to facilitate learning.

Med Mnemonics – $1.99 – Medical Mnemonics puts over 1400 clever acronyms, rhymes, and memory tricks on your iPhone or iPod Touch, covering topics ranging from Anatomy and Biochemistry to Pharmacology and Surgery.

General Reference

Medical Encyclopedia – Free – This comprehensive and free medical reference is from the University of Maryland Medical Center, one of the nation’s oldest academic medical centers. It contains more than 50,000 pages of in-depth and consumer friendly medical information in both English and Spanish.

Skyscape Medical Resources – Free – A collection of free Medical Information and Decision Support resources for Healthcare Professionals, including Physicians, Nurses, Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, Medical Students, Nursing Students, and more.

BLACKBAG Medical Resources – Free – BLACKBAG™ offers medical news, tools, and resources for healthcare professionals across 35+ specialties and therapeutic areas.

ICD-9 Look-up

STAT ICD-9 LITE – Free – All 13,677 ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes are now available in your pocket for quick retrieval by disease classification in a drilldown format with no typing. Code to the highest level of specificity every time. It works fast because it gives you only the information that you need – the diagnosis name and the ICD-9 code.

ICD-9 pcp – Free – ICD-9 pcp was designed by a practicing internist to meet the needs of primary care providers. Includes over 2000 hand selected ICD-9-CM codes commonly used by primary care physicians.

ICDMeister – $0.99 – The 2010 update taking effect 10/1/2009 is here. ICDMeister includes all of the 2010 ICD-9 diagnosis codes, not just a subset of codes. Includes a powerful search function that lets you search for abbreviations & acronyms (e.g. Afib, DM, CHF, SK, etc).

Lab Tests

Normal Lab Values – $1.99 – Displays normal laboratory values to help medical professionals interpret test results. Reference values are shown in US and SI units. Includes search field to find values quickly.

Pocket Lab Values – $2.99 – The perfect companion for medical students, residents, nurses, and other medical staff while working in a hospital. It provides quick access to common lab values, quick info about a particular lab value, as well has links to sites such as Wikipedia, Google, and MedlinePlus.

Medical Lab Tests – $5.99 – Offers short and concise information including normal lab values of the most common clinical laboratory tests. Designed primarily for physicians, nurses and medical students. The application covers more than one hundred blood tests.

Mental health

Mental Illness – Free – Mental Illness is a useful application that discusses the most important topics in mental health. This application is ideal for all medical professionals, medical residents and interns, nurses and medical students.

Psych Drugs – Free – Learn important and useful information about various psychotropic medications such as antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and anti-anxiety medications. You can use the search box to type a psychotropic medication you are looking for, or you can scroll alphabetically through the list and quickly jump to a letter with an A-Z side panel.

PsychTerms – Free – Contains a rich selection of 1000+ frequently used psychiatric and mental health terms, phrases and definitions — concisely written for quick and easy review. Ideal for all medical and mental health professionals, psychiatric residents, medical students, psychology students, therapists and counselors.

Nursing

Informed RN Pocket Guide – $9.99 – Gives access to the critical information nurses need, in an easy to use app with rich content, detailed illustrations, and pioneering features. Includes vital assessment information, with updated and expanded sections devoted to cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological, pediatric, OB, GI/GU, and mental health topics.

Nursing Central – $159.95 – Helps nurses and students find detailed information on diseases, tests, drugs, and procedures. The moment a question arises you can consult the up-to-date database of 5,000 drugs, find a definition in the dictionary with more than 60,000 terms, interpret hundreds of lab and diagnostic tests, and discover the latest information on a disease.

Nursing Pharmacology – $0.99 – Nursing Pharmacology is a fully-featured flash card app that helps you learn about nursing pharmacology. Individual cards can be added to or removed from a built-in “Faves Deck” at any time. Use the “Faves Deck” to study only the cards that really give you trouble!

Pediatrics

Pedi STAT – $2.99 – A rapid reference for RNs, paramedics, physicians and other healthcare professionals caring for pediatric patients in the emergency or critical care environment.

STAT GrowthCharts Lite – Free – Calculate accurate growth percentiles and Z scores using the latest CDC Growth Charts including the Body Mass Index-for-age charts. Also calculates blood pressure ranges from the The Fourth Report on the Diagnosis, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure in Children and Adolescents.

Pediatric Care Online (PCO) – Free – Published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and powered by Unbound Medicine, Pediatric Care Online delivers fast, to-the-point guidance on the clinical problems pediatricians face in everyday practice.

Point-of-Care Patient Education

Blausen Human Atlas – $19.99 – The Blausen Human Atlas 2.0 combines 3D medical animations with a cross searchable medical term glossary and detailed still images. For doctors, nurses, students and consumer caregivers, this is the ideal resource for communicating core concepts, right in the palm of your hand and right at point of care.

Pronunciations/Translations

Anatomy Pronunciations Lite -  Free – Plays back audio of the correct pronunciations of many of the anatomy terms you have trouble with. Lite version has 100+ pronunciations. Full version has 700+ pronunciations!

Medical Spanish (with audio) – $6.99 – Written by physicians to help you obtain a history, physical, and manage a Spanish speaking patient in nearly any setting. Developed by a Mac and iPhone software engineer to provide you unsurpassed functionality with professional yet eloquent design. Triple reviewed by bilingual South American natives for accuracy and up to date terminology.

Drug Pronunciations Lite – Free – Simple application that will play back audio of the correct pronunciations of over 200 drugs used in medicine today. Be confident when pronouncing drugs by knowing how to pronounce them properly beforehand.

Study Guides

MedRef – $0.99 – This easy-to-use medical reference application is ideal for medical students and residents. It includes normal lab values, how to write service notes, and additional reference material that is useful while on the wards and in clinic.

BoardReview – Free – Busy students can prep for their board exams by reviewing electronic drug information on their iPhone or iPod Touch. nursing students can study electronic nursing review cards to prep for the NCLEX-RN, on their iPhone or iPod Touch so they can test their nursing knowledge anytime, anyplace.

MCAT Prep Chemistry – $4.99 – The most comprehensive Chemistry review tool for MCAT preparation. Covers General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry and includes over 500 pages worth of material.

To see list of all 733 medical apps, check out this Google doc.