Viewing Radiology Images

Claron Technology’s Nil app takes advantage of the BlackBerry 10 platform’s multi-touch capabilities to allow physicians to swipe through X-rays, CT scans, Magnetic Resonance and echocardiogram images (shown here). The free app pulls the medical images from Claron’s NilCloud or a medical facility’s Nil server. It complements access to picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), according to Claron. It also allows doctors to manipulate images in single- or multiple-window displays.

Wolters Kluwer Health now offers its Lexicomp drug reference apps on BlackBerry 10. By accessing drug information and clinical content on a mobile device, pharmacists, physicians, nurses and dentists can improve patient outcomes, according to Wolters Kluwer Health. Lexicomp for BlackBerry 10 is free for 30 days. On BlackBerry 10, users can customize the order of fields in drug monographs and the choices in a display theme. “As more and more clinicians rely on their mobile devices to access drug information and clinical content to improve health care delivery, it’s imperative that drug information providers are able to keep up with and support a wide range of mobile platforms and operating systems,” David Del Toro, vice president and general manager for clinical drug information at Wolters Kluwer Health, said in a statement.

A free download, R.K. Soft’s HealthTracker allows BlackBerry users to monitor their weight, calories, blood pressure and blood sugar. Fitness buffs can track their progress over time and back up the data to the cloud. Just enter the type of exercise and the length of the workout, and the app calculates the amount of calories burned.

Health Meter allows users to calculate their body mass index (BMI) and body fat percentage and provides guidance on weight loss or gain. The 99 cent app performs calculations such as a danger BMI and assesses calorie needs based on BMI, age, daily workout type and gender.

MedlinePlus Mobile from the National Institutes of Health provides a mobile guide to pharmaceutical information and health topics. In the free app, users can look up spellings and definitions of medical terms, read health news, and research disorders and conditions. Categories to search include food and nutrition, population groups and cancers.

A free download, Monthly Prescribing Reference from Haymarket Media provides more than 4,200 monographs of prescription and over-the-counter drugs. It also offers a drug interactions checker, clinical calculators, and news alerts on drugs and safety.

My Personal Health Records Express (MphRx) Connect offers a cloud-based platform for storing, retrieving and sharing health records, including radiological images. A free download, MphRx allows for an encrypted transfer of images over wireless networks. Although doctors can view radiology images in the app, it doesn’t replace radiology workstations, according to MphRx.

Unbound Medicine’s free Nursing Central app provides information on diseases and procedures for nurses. The Nursing Central database holds information on 5,000 drugs and more than 60,000 dictionary terms. Users can also search the federal government’s Medline database or look through nursing journals. A one-year subscription costs $159.95.

Calculate by QxMD provides more than 150 clinical calculators and integrates with the PubMed U.S. government search tool for biomedical literature. Calculators allow doctors to determine if a patient is at risk for conditions such as a stroke or diabetes. The free app also offers decision support with content provided by clinical experts.

Pepid, a developer of clinical decision-support software, offers a free mobile app, Pepid for BlackBerry 10, which provides a guide to toxicology. A series of paid apps, the Pepid Portable Drug Companion Suite, costs $144.95 for a one-year subscription and contains a guide to 2,300 diseases and conditions. They also contain information on more than 8,500 drugs and provide several medical calculators.