iPhone medical app review: Medical Terminology and Abbreviations Quick Reference

I’ve been using the above iPhone program for the last month or so, and here’s a short review and interview of the programmer.  Disclosures: they gave me a free $1.99 copy to use.

My review: a very useful reference for those new to medical terminology, or who teach the same group.  Could use a search function, but otherwise it’s worth the price.

My review after the fold:

After a brief splash screen you’re given an easy to understand interface:

As an example, I chose ‘abbreviations’ and here’s the answer format:

Terminology gives these choices

with this sort of result:

It’s by a company called Phantom Software (link opens in iTunes), and I did a short Q&A with the author, Jesse Waites:

Interview

1- What made you decide to make this particular App?

I was wandering through the desert, tripping on acid, and the idea came to me in a vision.

I’m kidding….  :)

I was excited by the new mobile platform that Apple introduced, and impressed by Apple’s distribution platform, so I took a look around the medical subsection to see what was missing. I am a Surgery Technician by trade, so I thought it best to begin with what I know. I was fortunate enough to find something with broad appeal that would be useful to student doctors, nurses, and everyone else in the medical field. A co-worker mentioned that she was surprised no one else had thought of it first, and I silently agreed. Ideas to me seem similar to how some musicians write their songs… it was always there, you just have to be attuned and listen for it. I just pulled it out of the air. All of my ideas appear like that, like they are given to me, like the songs I play on my guitar.

The mobile platform will become the dominant platform for computing in the future. Everyone from Microsoft to Amazon to Apple is embracing “cloud computing”, storing information and doing the heavy processing work remotely, accessible from any internet connected device. Additionally, we are becoming a more mobile society, flying all over the world for meetings and commuting longer for work. When it comes to mobile devices, (I hate to call them “phones”, considering I use my iPhone for everything but calling people) battery life will get longer, the processors faster, and data transfer rates will increase as well. I would have never forgiven myself had I sat on the sidelines during it’s infancy, so I started Phantom Particle Software. Whether it be the iPhone or Google’s new Android Operating System, I want to make mobile devices more useful and fun. Maybe even cool…

2- How much time did it take you to develop it? Did you have must experience programming?

My mother taught me to program an old Commodore Vic 1001, the type that hooked up to a TV,  when I was seven years old. Computers have always been a big part of my life. Unfortunately, I fell out of programming as I grew older, so I went to a popular message board for freelance coders and hired someone to program it for me. I had him sign a non-disclosure agreement first, so I would be protected had he wanted to take my idea and make a competing product. I was very lucky however, because the programmer I hired was a great guy. Matt Stith, of Insomnia Addict Software, (www.insomniaaddict.com), was able to get me a great product at a great price. He was very easy to communicate with and yet didn’t ask too many questions, either. He knew what I wanted and was able to take what I wanted and run with it. It couldn’t have worked out any better. I intend on using him for my future projects, and even have him run hardware experiments for me on occasion. He’s really a super cool guy. Anyways, I compiled the actual data and passed that off to him, as well as specifications for the user interface. I then went to work on the graphic design. I enjoy doing that more as a hobby than anything else. I made the Phantom Particle logo and the splashscreen and passed it back off to Matt, who put it all together. The whole procedure took maybe 3 weeks, and then I submitted it to the App Store. It was approved suprisingly fast compared to what I had read during my research phase, and it was on sale a week later.

3- Do you have any other Apps in the pipeline?

I am currently working on a Pet CPR Application for the iPhone. There are alot of animal lovers out there, and this App will instruct people on how to care for their pets in emergency situations. It covers First Aid and care for dogs, cats, fish, reptiles, rabbits and other small animals. I am hopeful that it will be a lucrative market and I can roll that money into a few more Apps. I think I may like to try my hand at a game soon.

4- Any other thoughts on medicine or technology you’d like to discuss?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could develop wireless monitors for patients in hospitals?

After surgery, when we have to bring a patient to the ICU, the anesthesia staff has to disconnect the OR monitors from patient and hook up the transport monitor. I think it would be safer and economically feasable to have small bluetooth signal emmiters attached in place of the leads. That way, we could just dial up the frequency on the new monitor and head right out the door. When the patient gets to Intensive Care, they dial their monitors to the same channel… I wonder if anyone is working on that?

Also, for a time there I was very concerned with the net neutrality issue. Once again, it was an episode of big corporations paying off lobbyists, who in turn pay off our elected officials, to pass regulation to make things easier and more profitable for them, while strangling us. That seemed to be a theme over the last decade. Thankfully, President Obama has appointed a net neutrality supporter to the FCC, so I’m hopeful. I hope all of your readers take the time to check out  www.savetheinternet.org and educate themselves on this incredibly important issue.

Thank you.