Apps for physicians

When it comes to health, wellness, and fitness apps, we physicians tend to think of our patients. As in, how can this app help my patient lose weight, exercise more, monitor his diabetes, or help her stay compliant with her medications?

But what about physicians and other health care workers? Can apps help us? Absolutely. According to Dr. Craig Burkhart, a dermatologist and apps expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, many physicians aren’t taking advantage of apps that can improve efficiency. "Most physicians I encounter have $1,000-$2,000 smartphones and tablets (when you include the service plans) and only make phone calls, check e-mails, text, and listen to music on them – all things they could do with much less expensive devices."

Dr. Burkhart says that many apps "can turn your devices into tools that help organize your e-mails, organize your schedule, bring clinical information to your fingertips, aid patient-doctor communication, secure important information, speed up and improve note taking, and more."

Apps for physicians are available in categories including patient education, drug reference, medical literature, and general reference.

Check out these handy apps and see what works for you:

• Read by QxMD. Staying up to date on medical journals is a challenge. This app lets you access, organize, and share articles from your favorite medical journals. Its magazinelike interface is popular with users, and makes reading medical journals "as fun as it can be," says Dr. Burkhart.

• PDFpen. Dr. Burkhart says this app is "essential to a paperless workflow." It allows users to sign and send documents without printing actual sheets of paper, making for a greener and more efficient office.

• Visual DX. A reference tool for physicians, this app is a digital medical image library with more than 25,000 images. It allows you to visually confirm a diagnosis and to quickly search on a disease, including symptoms and patient care management. A key feature is its ability to let you create a visual differential of medication-induced diseases for more than 700 different drugs.

• 1Password. We’ve all forgotten passwords from time to time. This app allows you to make and store highly secure and complex passwords. For Dr. Burkhart, it has "replaced memory and random sheets of paper as his password repository."

• Draw MD. We know that visuals often help us to explain complex issues to patients more effectively. This app enables you to draw and modify medical images and surgical procedures in a way that is clear and understandable to patients.

• 3D4Medical. This app can enhance patient education by using 3D technology to allow navigation around the body. You can zoom, rotate, and cut images to create different perspectives.

Dr. Jeffrey Benabio is a partner physician in the department of dermatology of the Southern California Permanente Group in San Diego and a volunteer clinical assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego. He has published numerous scientific articles and is a member and fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology, and a member of the Telemedicine Association and the American Medical Association, among others. He is board certified in dermatology as well as medicine and surgery in the state of California. Dr. Benabio has a special interest in the uses of social media for education and building a dermatology practice. He is the founder of The Derm Blog, an educational website which has had over 2 million unique visitors. Dr. Benabio is also a founding member and the skin care expert for Livestrong.com, a health and wellness website of Lance Armstrong’s the Livestrong Foundation. Dr. Benabio is @Dermdoc on Twitter.

When it comes to health, wellness, and fitness apps, we physicians tend to think of our patients. As in, how can this app help my patient lose weight, exercise more, monitor his diabetes, or help her stay compliant with her medications?

But what about physicians and other health care workers? Can apps help us? Absolutely. According to Dr. Craig Burkhart, a dermatologist and apps expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, many physicians aren’t taking advantage of apps that can improve efficiency. "Most physicians I encounter have $1,000-$2,000 smartphones and tablets (when you include the service plans) and only make phone calls, check e-mails, text, and listen to music on them – all things they could do with much less expensive devices."

Dr. Burkhart says that many apps "can turn your devices into tools that help organize your e-mails, organize your schedule, bring clinical information to your fingertips, aid patient-doctor communication, secure important information, speed up and improve note taking, and more."

Apps for physicians are available in categories including patient education, drug reference, medical literature, and general reference.

Check out these handy apps and see what works for you:

• Read by QxMD. Staying up to date on medical journals is a challenge. This app lets you access, organize, and share articles from your favorite medical journals. Its magazinelike interface is popular with users, and makes reading medical journals "as fun as it can be," says Dr. Burkhart.

• PDFpen. Dr. Burkhart says this app is "essential to a paperless workflow." It allows users to sign and send documents without printing actual sheets of paper, making for a greener and more efficient office.

• Visual DX. A reference tool for physicians, this app is a digital medical image library with more than 25,000 images. It allows you to visually confirm a diagnosis and to quickly search on a disease, including symptoms and patient care management. A key feature is its ability to let you create a visual differential of medication-induced diseases for more than 700 different drugs.

• 1Password. We’ve all forgotten passwords from time to time. This app allows you to make and store highly secure and complex passwords. For Dr. Burkhart, it has "replaced memory and random sheets of paper as his password repository."

• Draw MD. We know that visuals often help us to explain complex issues to patients more effectively. This app enables you to draw and modify medical images and surgical procedures in a way that is clear and understandable to patients.

• 3D4Medical. This app can enhance patient education by using 3D technology to allow navigation around the body. You can zoom, rotate, and cut images to create different perspectives.

Dr. Jeffrey Benabio is a partner physician in the department of dermatology of the Southern California Permanente Group in San Diego and a volunteer clinical assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego. He has published numerous scientific articles and is a member and fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology, and a member of the Telemedicine Association and the American Medical Association, among others. He is board certified in dermatology as well as medicine and surgery in the state of California. Dr. Benabio has a special interest in the uses of social media for education and building a dermatology practice. He is the founder of The Derm Blog, an educational website which has had over 2 million unique visitors. Dr. Benabio is also a founding member and the skin care expert for Livestrong.com, a health and wellness website of Lance Armstrong’s the Livestrong Foundation. Dr. Benabio is @Dermdoc on Twitter.

When it comes to health, wellness, and fitness apps, we physicians tend to think of our patients. As in, how can this app help my patient lose weight, exercise more, monitor his diabetes, or help her stay compliant with her medications?

But what about physicians and other health care workers? Can apps help us? Absolutely. According to Dr. Craig Burkhart, a dermatologist and apps expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, many physicians aren’t taking advantage of apps that can improve efficiency. "Most physicians I encounter have $1,000-$2,000 smartphones and tablets (when you include the service plans) and only make phone calls, check e-mails, text, and listen to music on them – all things they could do with much less expensive devices."

Dr. Burkhart says that many apps "can turn your devices into tools that help organize your e-mails, organize your schedule, bring clinical information to your fingertips, aid patient-doctor communication, secure important information, speed up and improve note taking, and more."

Apps for physicians are available in categories including patient education, drug reference, medical literature, and general reference.

Check out these handy apps and see what works for you:

• Read by QxMD. Staying up to date on medical journals is a challenge. This app lets you access, organize, and share articles from your favorite medical journals. Its magazinelike interface is popular with users, and makes reading medical journals "as fun as it can be," says Dr. Burkhart.

• PDFpen. Dr. Burkhart says this app is "essential to a paperless workflow." It allows users to sign and send documents without printing actual sheets of paper, making for a greener and more efficient office.

• Visual DX. A reference tool for physicians, this app is a digital medical image library with more than 25,000 images. It allows you to visually confirm a diagnosis and to quickly search on a disease, including symptoms and patient care management. A key feature is its ability to let you create a visual differential of medication-induced diseases for more than 700 different drugs.

• 1Password. We’ve all forgotten passwords from time to time. This app allows you to make and store highly secure and complex passwords. For Dr. Burkhart, it has "replaced memory and random sheets of paper as his password repository."

• Draw MD. We know that visuals often help us to explain complex issues to patients more effectively. This app enables you to draw and modify medical images and surgical procedures in a way that is clear and understandable to patients.

• 3D4Medical. This app can enhance patient education by using 3D technology to allow navigation around the body. You can zoom, rotate, and cut images to create different perspectives.

Dr. Jeffrey Benabio is a partner physician in the department of dermatology of the Southern California Permanente Group in San Diego and a volunteer clinical assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego. He has published numerous scientific articles and is a member and fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology, and a member of the Telemedicine Association and the American Medical Association, among others. He is board certified in dermatology as well as medicine and surgery in the state of California. Dr. Benabio has a special interest in the uses of social media for education and building a dermatology practice. He is the founder of The Derm Blog, an educational website which has had over 2 million unique visitors. Dr. Benabio is also a founding member and the skin care expert for Livestrong.com, a health and wellness website of Lance Armstrong’s the Livestrong Foundation. Dr. Benabio is @Dermdoc on Twitter.