iTunes and Medicine

As I began to search for topics to fill my blog requirement for these past two weeks, I typed in "iTunes and medicine," not expecting to find much about the topic. However, I was surprised as I have been throughout this whole blog that there is a wealth of information about iTunes and its relation to medicine. The number of apps that can be purchased through iTunes for iPhones and iPod touches relating to medicine, is overwhelming. There are applications for everything related to medicine, from drug databases to interfaces for electronic medical records of patients. As someone who has shadowed in the offices of various doctors, I have seen a number of doctors pull out some sort of "smartphone" or iPod device to look up a piece of medical information that they couldn't recall from memory. On more then one occasion, I've seen a physician refer to an application on an iPhone to help them remember doses of various drugs.

The use of iTunes to download medical applications has become more and more common over the years, and I think its interesting to realize the use of technology not originally intended to act in the field of medicine now serving such an important role. The ability for doctors to virtually have hundreds of reference books at their fingertips on a daily basis helps to improve the quality of care provided to patients while they visit their doctor's offices on a regular basis.

As discussed on a blog posted by Dr. Joshua Schwimmer, MD about medical technology, there are a lot of applications related to medical technology available in iTunes. Some of the specific applications referenced include: Netter's Anatomy Flash Cards, iChart EMR, and Lexi-COMPLETE. Doctor's have access to a wealth of information to help them to practice better medicine on a daily basis, and if this technology could be expanded to developing countries, I think that medicine would improve in those areas substantially as a result. For example, as discussed in an earlier post, many people in rural areas of the developing world are forced to treat patients based on what they can recall from their medical training. Access to applications like the ones mentioned above would help health care professionals to be able to better treat patients because they would be able to gain access to information quickly when they don't have extensive personal memory of the particular topic at hand.