Category: Inhaled Medication - BUNCHING

Category: Inhaled Medication - BUNCHING

Category: Smart phone and PDA

The Medical PDA is Not Dead - Expanding your ectopic brain without changing your phone.

Smartphones are terrific but not the only option.

Access to free or cheap quality software is still within reach without a smartphone and its associated monthly costs. The Wi-Fi capable Apple iPod Touch gives you access to numerous quality iOS medical applications without having to switch your phone or carrier.

3 Exceptional Examples of General iOS Programs Useful for the Respiratory Therapist:

Calculator

MedCalc gives you easy access to an astounding array of medical formulas. It includes detailed information and bibliographic references for each formula. Free http://itunes.apple.com/app/medcalc-medical-calculator/id299470331?mt=8

Drug Reference

Epocrates is one of the most most widely used medical apps. It provides clinical information on thousands of prescriptions and OTC drug products. It features a pill identifier, formulary information, a drug interaction checker and calculations. It is the exceptional free 1^st part of a paid for comprehensive suite. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/epocrates/id281935788?mt=8

General Resource

Diagnosauras DDX is a reference tool that assists healthcare professionals with differential diagnosis at the point of care. You can quickly search over 1,000 diagnoses by organ system, symptom, disease or view all entries. $0.99 http://itunes.apple.com/app/diagnosaurus-ddx/id306402834?mt=8

Category: Smart phone and PDA

Most respiratory therapist think of Blackberry as an excellent messaging device without appreciating what an excellent smartphone and clinical information tool this platform can be. This is particularly true since the Blackberry operating system (OS) makes a capable replacement to the retiring Palm Garnet and Windows Mobile OS.

Epocrates Rx free remains my primary go-to drug guide in this OS with the included MedMath calculator being a positive free addition to this suite. The application includes monographs for more than 3,500 drugs and is updated “over the air” weekly.

Blackberry’s do not have the depth and breadth of the iPhone clinical software but if this device is already part of your routine why not use it to expand your portable clinical brain power.

Category: Smart phone and PDA - TECHNOLOGY

The two healthcare resources I find myself using most consistently on my ectopic brain (a.k.a. my PDA /Smart phone) are ePocrates and MedCalc. My earlier recommendations of these excellent portable memory expanders on the Palm and Windows Mobile operating systems still stands, with this addition.
If you are an iPhone or iTouch user the excellent characteristics of these programs shine on Apples portable systems.

http://med-ia.ch/medcalc/iphone_description.html
http://www.epocrates.com/index.html

Category: Inhaled Medication - BUNCHING

Category: Smart phone and PDA - TECHNOLOGY

Medcalc is still my "go-to" freeware medical calculator, and for my needs is still is the best.
A complimentary alternative free calculator is Archimedes from Skyscape.
http://www.skyscape.com/estore/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductId=227
Skyscape is a leader in mobile medical information. Their huge catalogue of "for sale" and some free specialty content is impressive.

Category: Airway - ACRONYM

Describing Clinical Characteristics of a Tracheotomy Tube
Airway lumens
a) Single lumen
b) Dual lumen
c) Is connecting adaptor (15mmOD) removed with inner cannula out?

Brand & Composition
a) Company of manufacture
b) Metal – stainless steel, silver
c) Plastic – PVC, silicone

Cuff
a) Cuffed or not cuffed
b) Inflated or deflated
c) Characteristics of the cuff (high vol low press, low vol high press, foam)

Diameter and Dimensions of tube
a) Inner diameter (I.D.)
b) Outer diameter (O.D.)
c) Length of tube (standard, short or long length)

FEnestration
a) Fenestration open
b) Fenestration closed
c) Position and construction of fenestration

Category: Smart phone and PDA - TECHNOLOGY

In addition to ePocrates being an excellent clinical PDA program their free online resources are an excellent tool for keeping important facts at your fingertips when you have web access.


Just enter a disease or drug name and click go.

Category: Smart phone and PDA - TECHNOLOGY

Author Dana Oakes has published the quick reference pocket guides for over twenty-five years. Their accuracy, professionalism, and affordability have made these books the standard in portable respiratory care texts. Titles include the Clinical Practitioner’s Pocket Guide to Respiratory Care (the famous “Blue Book”) and many others. These books are now also available for smart phones and PDA (only in a Windows Mobile version) further expanding their use at the bedside and lightening up our bulging lab coat pockets.

http://www.respiratorybooks.com/

Category: Smart phone and PDA - TECHNOLOGY

Introduction -Medical calculators on smart phones and PDA save time and help prevent calculation errors. Useful physiologic calculations are more readilyused if you do not need to rely on only your less than perfect memory.
There are many options but at this time Medcalc is my go-to calculator .
MedCalc runs on Palm OS and Windows Mobile handheld devices. It is designed for rapid calculation of common medical formulas and scores used in anesthesiology, pediatrics, emergency, intensive care and internal medicine.

Features -

• free and easy to use
• comprehensive (>80 formulas, see complete list)
• formulas sorted by categories
• units available either in S.I. or local units (defaults can be set for each item)
• most formulas come with bibliographic references and clinical tips
• results can be saved for later retrieval (Palm OS only)

System requirements -A Palm OS compatible device running Palm OS 3.1 or later Windows Mobile 2003 or later .
http://med-ia.ch/medcalc/index.html

Category: Smart phone and PDA - TECHNOLOGY

Three Free PDA (personal digital assistant) and Smart Phone Clinical References for both Palm OS or Microsoft Mobile.
If you already own a smart phone or PDA with a memory card, why not consider loading clinical references into your device. Having a clinical library in your pocket is like expanding your own memory.

ePocrates Rx
https://www.epocrates.com/
ePocrates Rx is a Peer-reviewed drug information resource. It is not quite like carrying the PDR around in your lab coat pocket but it is close. This is the free component of an extensive & comprehensive clinical suite available for the PDA. ePocrates Mobile CME and MedTools are also free resources. It is a relatively large program, but it worth the memory it eats up. It looks for updates whenever you sync your device keeping the reference up to date.

Merck Medicus
http://www.merckmedicus.com/pp/us/hcp/hcp_mobile_medicus.jsp
That’s right, a free Merck manual. MerckMedicus also provides an integrated set of useful medical resources for your PDA. Not as slick as some of the purchased comprehensive references and a bit heavy on memory use but definitely worth it.

MeisterMed and The Medical iSiloTM Depot
http://www.meistermed.com/index.htm
MeisterMed has a collection of freeware and commercial products that are designed for the iSilo document reader such as the AsthmaMeister. There is also an extensive collection of free medical iSilo documents on the web. The iSilo document reader trial is free and the full license is very reasonable.

Because of the enormous amount of information needed by Respiratory Care Practitioners during patient care and the increasing demand for that information at the bedside a technologic expansion of your memory can be a real asset.