Some of the data is published here, since it can be useful to readers of our blog.

Functionality and sophistication of applications in section “Medical” (Top-100)

The most popular price: $0.99 (35%)

Average price in TOP-100: $4.38

The average price in Top-10: $2.29 (the most optimal price for new applications).

Conclusions

- low quality of the most of applications can probably explained by either unqualified developers (“student’s quality”) or the fact that developers don’t understand the specificity of medical applications and can’t modify them properly for iPhone;

- the main mistake of new developers: charging an exorbitantly high prices per simple applications (most often $9.99), whereby the demand and total profit are minimal.

- customers are promised a valued result with the help of many applications which in reality can’t be derived on the basis of given data (in other words it is a deception of customer with respect to service’s quality);

- the section “Medical” contains relatively few projects with good ideas; mainly these are merely the databases or catalogues of audio/video materials, without adaptation etc (71%);

- applications don’t use the business model of subscriptions(”In App Purchases”) and various additional features of the phone (sensors, camera etc);

The data analysis suggests that section “Medical” still has to get its “medical killer app” as  a result  of effective cooperation between highly skilled doctors and experienced developers of mobile applications.

In the next article we will similarly analyze section “Healthcare” of mobile applications for iPhone.

We also plan to monitor in the future the qualitative changes of applications in Top-100 of this section and will publish respective reports for our readers.

The review is prepared by
specialists of The Viactivity LLC
(development and promotion of mobile applications)

Voalté successfully integrated an interesting innovative iPhone-based clinical communications project in Sarasota Memorial Hospital in September 2009(link).

After 3 months, when it has become already possible to speak about real results of the project, we decided to address the Vice President of Innovation of Voalté, Trey Lauderdale, and ask him several questions. We believe that the answers on these items are interesting for professionals of the branch.

Q:  So, Trey, if it’s not difficult, let’s start with a couple of words about your company.
No problem.
Voalté helps improve hospital mobile point-of-care communication by providing a complete solution for voice, alarms and text messaging on a robust expandable platform – the Apple iPhone. We were started in Fall 2008 in Sarasota, Florida.

Q: Great! Now I would like to ask several questions directly about the introduced software solution. How can you characterize the results after two months of program integration in Sarasota Memorial Hospital?
The pilot of Voalté One has been an amazing success at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. I truly feel we were able to strike a win-win relationship with the organization and we were lucky to have such a great hospital in our backyard. We were able to learn an unbelievable amount from their caregivers and it has greatly helped to improve the functionality we are able to offer as a company to our end-users. It was also a win for SMH in that they were able to help shape the future of point-of-care communication on the iPhone and were able to leverage the advanced communication functionality we could offer to them with this innovative platform.

Q: Could you, please, mention the most interesting responses from the patients and the clinic staff as the main users?
One of the most interesting comments we received came from two separate patients the day of go-live at the pilot unit. Almost immediately we were able to drastically reduce overhead paging in the hospital. There were two different patients who had been in the nursing unit a few days, and separately, they both asked their nurses if everything was OK in the unit. The nurses said yes, and asked why. Both patients said they noticed the unit was so much quieter than the day before and wanted to make sure everything was alright.
Keeping the nursing floors quiet is unbelievably important to nurse management because it helps patients sleep and rest better which leads to better patient outcomes. We were thrilled to hear our solution was able to effect noise in and around the room the day of Go-live.

Q: it would be interesting for our readers to learn about the basic parameters of solution integration(integration terms; the budget, counted for the one user; requirements to the staff; whether it is necessary to carry out training etc.)
We provide a turn key solution to the hospital to get iPhone’s in at the point-of-care. Hospitals don’t want (and really don’t have the time) to purchase piece-meal solutions that aren’t made to fit their workflow.
We provide the hardware, installation, integration to hospital’s PBX, integration to middleware, training to users, and go-live support to make sure the project is a success.

Q: If it’s not a commercial secret, are you going to integrate similar solutions in the USA and other countries? What level of interest in similar systems, including the interest of the state structures, is there now?
Our goal is to continue growing our market share in the U.S. acute care hospital setting. As we see new opportunities develop for our software, we will investigate them accordingly. Right now, we feel the greatest return on investment for our solution is at the point-of-care.

Q: As for you, which of mobile platforms, along with iPhone, have prospects for the mass use in clinics? Why?
The iPhone and RIM BlackBerry seem to be the two devices gaining the most traction in healthcare. RIM still has a strong presence due to it’s support by IT staffs and technical teams. Without a doubt, the iPhone is still the hot item right now, and the App store has helped make it even hotter. Apple claims more than 700 medical apps which is unbelievable- just think of the number of apps that will be out in a few years. The raw number of applications and the number of developers storming to the iPhone was a deciding factor in why Voalté selected to develop on the iPhone first.
One other platform worthy of mention is the Google Android. With the launch of the 2.0 firmware Google has started to get minimal attention in healthcare. The openness of Android platform allows developers to access a number of API’s they would not be able to get to on an iPhone. The result (in theory) should lead to deeper app’s available only on the Android. Only time will tell if developers fully embrace the Android in healthcare as much as they have the iPhone.

Q: It would be interesting to learn from your words what is the venture investors’ estimation of the start-up investments perspective in the mHealth sphere? What ideas for investment in the mHealth sphere will be the most popular during next 2-3 years?
mHealth, as in all new industries, will take a few years to gel before the market leaders begin to take form. We have big players entering the field (Cisco, GE, Philips, etc). I think it is great that they are getting involved so early, but I really think it is the smaller start-ups that will drive the greatest innovation and out-of-the-box ideas.
I think ideas that enable the automatic entering of person health data onto mobile devices and the web (PHR) will be the technologies that have the most success. Unfortunately, the average consumer is not going to take a proactive role in entering their health data into the cloud. I think the companies that find the easiest, most non-intrusive way to get data from the patient to the PHR are going to be the most successful and have the greatest effect on the market.

Q: When mHealth will become popular and start to bring profit on the mass market? What is necessary for this purpose?
That’s a tough question. I think there will be one vendor that finds a way to make this profitable, and the floodgate swill then open. As for time frame, I would say early 2011 to mid 2011 is when the mass market will begin seeing profit.

Trey, Thanks for wonderful interview!
I believe your answers will allow estimating at true worth the mHealth sphere and we’ll see even more interesting and useful decisions on the market soon!

Editor
Vitaliy Goncharuk

The iPhone Medical Apps is a project of The VIactivity LLC

(medical SEO, software development for iPhone and Android, production)

We were selected these 7 new and noteworthy iPhone medical apps only:

1. Case History: MEDICAL History taking Guide. Ask the Right Questions!

Go! /App Store

Medical History taking is an Art.
History is the first thing you learn in clinical medicine and Case History is the first of its kind application on the App Store
Case History Offers you a clear structured and systematic approach to history taking. As a medical student, its absolutely critical to get well versed with a systematic, step wise approach to history taking.This is an essential skill to acquire for any physician.
USEFUL FOR USMLE Step2, PLAB, MBBSFinal

2.  Emergency Room Locator

Go! / App Store

You can’t afford not to have ER Locator in an Emergency!
Typing is the last thing you should be doing in an emergency
It takes 32+ clicks to search for an ER or Urgent Care Facility.
With a single click from any screen ER Locator will determine your location and display a map of Emergency Rooms and Urgent Care Facilities in your vicinity.
We help weed out false positives like Animal Hospitals and Veterinarians.
Efficient and Effective!

3. iCoder CPT

Go! / App Store

iCoder CPT brings you the complete CPT database for all medical specialties in a simple, fast and easy to use application. You can browse codes by category, body areas or guidelines and can also do searches by single word, multiple words, fragments or the actual code.
iCoder allows you to select your GPCI location and from there shows you facility and non-facility payments.
Once you pick a guideline or code, you will be presented with a detail view showing you additional information about the code, including associated codes, RVU values, and dollar amounts adjusted for your GPCI location; you will also be allowed to easily scroll left or right to codes up and down in the search or the category.

4. A2Z of Dermatology

Go!/ App store

Want to know more Dermatology?
Are you a medical student, doctor, nurse or allied health professional who looks after patients that might get skin problems? Are you sitting for an exam and want a quick way of learning a lot of dermatology that is particularly useful for spotters e.g. USMLE, PLAB, finals, MRCP, MRCGP etc Well here is a great mini textbook to carry around with you at all times. 115 different diagnoses all with zoomable full colour high quality photos and brief explanatory text.

5. uHearFR

Go! / App Store

Hearing Loss Myth: Hearing loss affects only “old people” and is merely a sign of aging.
Actually it is the reverse of what most people think. The majority (65%) of people with hearing loss are younger than age 65. There are more than six million people in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 44 with hearing loss, and nearly one and a half million are school age. Hearing loss affects all age groups.
uHearFR™ is a hearing loss screening test which allows you to test your hearing to determine if it is within normal range, or if you have a potential hearing loss.

6. Drug Trials

Go!/ App Store

Designed for MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS and PATIENTS.
DRUG TRIALS provides:
* Information about new drugs currently being tested in humans.
* Information about established drugs being tested in humans for new uses.
Search our comprehensive database of over 80,000 clinical trials registered with the US government, easily identifying the clinical trials that are most relevant to the medical needs and interests of you, your patients, or a loved one.

View information describing:
*** The Trial’s purpose *** Eligibility Criteria  *** Trial locations *** Trial Contact Information (phone numbers, email & addresses when available)

7. Wireless Medical

Go! / App Store

Wireless Medical is an application that allows health professionals to manage their patients anywhere at any time. To use all functions of Wireless Medical, the access to a customer-related server is required. This means that only customers of Wireless Medical to use the respective live system. A Demo mode offers sample features using locally stored information.

(sensors for mobile phones, not ordinary Health 2.0  web portals )

As the editor of two medical software blogs for iPhone and Android, I can notice that there are the low share of apps and the low profit in medical and healthcare categories because of poor quality of majority of the apps . Therefore at the present time there is almost nothing innovative there from the user’s or technological points of view, isn’t it?

As an analyst I can conclude that the electronic medical records sphere could not reach the end-consumer still . Now it is just creating the solutions for the b2b market which is for sure potentially less than the mass-market.

By the way it’s clear to all industry leaders that no one normal consumer will enter somewhere the big database of his illnesses on his own, write down all his steps (what he eats, what drugs he has taken, what and how long something hurts) daily, take on trust the information from the ordinary medical web-portal without confirmation of his personal doctor etc.

What will save all these billions of investments and elevate the Health 2.0 sphere on the fundamentally new level?

It’s simple – Only new products which are really necessary for usual consumer.

What does consumer want?
He just wants to receive every day the reliable personal instructions/advices concerning health without any own efforts .
Yes, yes!
Without the tiresome fillings of forms, documents, papers and so on.
Without the searches at “doubtful” forums and sites.
Without the preliminary studying of 100 inconsistent opinions of anonymous users in “chat”.

He just wants the product, which KNOWS him and KNOWS what he does every second, to give out him accurate and simple advices, like «you may do it, you may not do that, it’s better to make/choose that thing, danger threatens you, it’s dangerous to eat that as you are diabetic etc.».

How is that possible?

For the creation of such product it is necessary mass production and integration of various mini – sensors for the mobile phones , which will study environment and generate corresponding recommendations and advices on the basis of global medical knowledge databases and a personal medical card of the consumer without the user’s troubles .

Do you think it’s unreal?Why?
Two leaders, Google and Microsoft, have already useful b2b infrastructure and medical knowledge databases(Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault).

Creation of the sensors, which are comprehensible to the consumer, though and slowly, but begins to develop:
- Recently NASA has created a sensor for iPhone, which allows defining poisonous gases in the air.

- The standard complete set of iPhone includes accelerometer, which allows to define movements of the person (it is already applied for monitoring of old people fettle)

– Recently it was put out the solution, which lets to use iPhone as a stethoscope;

Research and Development of the other, more advanced, sensors are held now. These sensors will become new sense organs for the human are conducted and will allow people to study environment every second more complex and detailed.

So it’s possible that in 3-5 years there will be tiny sensors which are capable to study structure of food , to learn the safety of environment, to analyze the key parameters of person’s health, his psychological fettle etc.

After It will be necessary just to collect all these data from sensors on the Internet servers, to “connect” data with a personal medical card of the person and to analyze them, giving out those or other recommendations on-line.

Do you imagine how perspective and profitable it is?

Author:
Vit Goncharuk,
Editor at iPhoneMedicalApps.com
CEO at VIactivity LCC[Software development, production and SEO for iPhone, Android, Symbian, Web-projects etc]

When the  iPhone will be integrated into this solution?

Time, distance and cost often hamper efforts to link patients with the right health care expert, causing further concern for those needing to consult with faraway doctors. Verizon is answering this need with new services for physicians, hospitals, clinics and insurers that enable providers to “see” patients through video consultations, as well as other collaboration services.

Verizon’s portfolio, Telehealth Collaboration Services, enables health care providers to consult remotely with patients and other providers, offer continuing medical education and training to medical professionals, as well as help health care administrators avoid costly and time-consuming travel through the use of collaborative technology.

As part of its consultancy, Verizon Business IT professionals work with health care organizations to assess their collaboration readiness, as well as design, implement and provide ongoing support for a broad range of Web and audio conferencing services, and video capabilities from desktop Web cams to high-definition and immersive video. Verizon’s telehealth solutions are tailored to each health care setting to deliver security, performance and reliability.

Direct link: link

Dan Diamond has been a family doctor for more than 20 years. But in a field as vast as medicine, and with so many constant advances in medical knowledge, he can’t possibly know everything. That’s where iPhone comes in.

With an application called Epocrates, Diamond can reference volumes of in-depth medical information right at the exam table. He can look up diseases and medications, drug interactions and side effects, drug prices, and even whether a particular medication is covered by the patient’s insurance.

“If somebody comes in and says they’re having problems with nausea, and I want to know whether that’s a side effect for any of the medications they’re on, it’s easy for me to look up the medications right there,” Diamond says. “And being able to do that in the exam room is a very good thing. It improves patient care.”

Epocrates also gives Diamond access to information about lab tests. “Last week a patient had a lab result that was abnormally high,” he says. “So I got out my iPhone and looked up alkaline phosphatase. It gave me a list of all of the likely issues that might be associated with a high result.” Another patient had a question about whether her husband’s life-threatening condition was genetic (and therefore might be inherited by her son), and Diamond was able to look that up, too.

Sometimes, after Dr. Diamond reviews a patient’s chart, he’ll do a quick check on Epocrates before entering the exam room. “Maybe they have hereditary spherocytosis (a blood disorder), a disease I haven’t seen for a while. And I need a little refresher: What’s the background? What labs should I be following for this patient? It takes about 30 seconds to look it up on my iPhone. And when I enter the room, I can bring it up.”

Anatomy lessons
In the exam room, Dr. Diamond also consults an application called Anatomy, which gives him access to hundreds of anatomical images drawn by Frank Netter, a famous medical illustrator. “That’s helpful if I have a patient with an injured knee, and I’m trying to explain what the meniscus is,” he explains. “I can really quickly bring up the pictures and say, ‘Here’s what the meniscus is. Here’s where your problem is. And here’s our game plan.’” Speed and ease of access are particularly important to Diamond, who sees 25-30 patients a day.

iPhone has helped Dr. Diamond communicate with some of his younger patients, too. “Kids want to know how stuff works, so showing anatomy pictures is helpful,” he says.

With teens, he uses YouTube to illustrate a very important message: seat belt safety. “For adolescents who don’t want to wear seat belts, I have a YouTube video bookmarked on my iPhone. It shows a guy who wasn’t wearing a seat belt falling asleep at the wheel, crashing, and being thrown through the back window of the car. It takes me 30 seconds to show the video, and it changes the teen’s behavior for the rest of his life.”

Diamond also uses iPhone to educate himself. With an app called Instapaper, which saves websites and articles for later reading, he catches up on medical journals and other interesting content. “That’s really cool, because I might see something and find it interesting, but I won’t have time right then. With Instapaper, I can just read it later, on my iPhone.”

iPhone at home
Dr. Diamond uses iPhone throughout the day, from the moment he wakes up until well past the time he finishes with patients. And he takes it with him on weekends, too. “I wake up to the alarm going off, and then I check the weather for the day,” he says. “At breakfast, I read AP Mobile News, and I look at the tide tables to see if it’ll be a decent day to go out and row.” On the water, iPhone helps Diamond track his workouts. “I even have an app called SpeedCoach, that allows me to get in my rowing shell and tracks my speed and my stroke count—without any external equipment, just using the technology that’s built into the iPhone.”

Direct link + video: link

We were selected these 7 new and noteworthy medical apps only:

1. Certified Nursing Assistant

Go! / App Store

Learn what it takes to be a certified nursing assistant!
Certified Nursing Assistant is a fully-featured flash card app that helps you learn what it takes to become a certified nursing assistant.
Included in this app are:
+ Main Deck
+ Faves Deck
+ Ignore Feature
+ Shuffle Ability
+ Choice of Primary Side
+ Search Feature
+ Index
+ Beautiful, Easy-to-Use Interface
Individual cards can be added to or removed from a built-in “Faves Deck” at any time. Use the “Faves Deck” to study only the cards that really give you trouble!

2. Urogenital System

Go! / App Store

Overview:
This app is a useful reference tool that allows the user to zoom in and identify the individual elements of the urogenital system. It is not a Pro version and has been designed to accommodate students in secondary levels of education and all those interested in anatomical medical knowledge.

FEATURES:
• No internet connection required.
• Ability to zoom in and identify any urogenital organ (Male or Female).
• Ability to rotate the organs for anterior, lateral, posterior and medial views, inferior and superior views are available where appropriate.
• Full anatomical descriptions of all labelled parts.
• All labels appear with both English and Latin names.
• A dual index that can search in both English and Latin.
• Ability to test yourself with a fun Quiz function.

3. Swine flu symptoms checker

Go! / App Store

H1N1 (Swine) flu symptom checklist is an interactive app for iPhone/iPod Touch to help protect yourself and your family from Swine Flu as well as self-care advice.

FEATURES
* Ability to log your symptoms with notes on your iPhone
* Helps you check symptoms of H1N1 flu and when to seek immediate medical care
* Contains a guide to Self-Care for H1N1 Flu
* Emergency warning signs for Children and Adults
* Access to real-time updates from flu.gov
* Email symptoms to your doctor directly from your iPhone
* Flu-Shot location finder
* Tips for protecting yourself, to reduce your risk from Swine Flu.

4. iAsthma in Control

Go! / App Store

*WARNING:
Please give the friendly monster in this App
his inhaler meds daily when you take yours. Thank you!
Daily Asthma App for kids (adults like it too)
iAsthma in Control is a daily Medical App geared towards helping kids mange all aspects of their asthma health.
Teach your kids how to take care of themselves by putting everything they need to know about their asthma health in their pocket on their iPhone/iTouch.
Asthma can be a life long condition. This app teaches kids how to:
* Stay healthy by taking their daily meds ( Feed the monster his meds too)
* Be aware of the symptoms that may precede an asthma attack.
* Feel in control and secure with instant pocket access to their personalized asthma “rescue plan” as well as emergency contacts.

5. BiorhythmCal

Go! / App Store

From one’s birth on the human being disposes of three types of biorhythm: physical, emotional and intellectual. Each of the biorythm cycles consists of two half-cycles: a positive and a negative one.
During the first half of the physical cycle one is full of energy and reaches the optimum in his/her activities, whereas during the second half of the cycle the boost of energy and activity gives way to laziness.
During the first half of the emotional cycle one is in good humor, is also aggressive, optimistic, of adequate awareness of his/her resources, whereas during the second half of the cycle one is irritable, tends to emotional explosions, underestimates his resources, tends to pessimism and criticism.

6. Bad Breath Detector

Go! / App Store

You’ll love the dumb founded looks, laughs and other reactions of family and friends as you test their breath using the Bad Breath Detector. Your iPhone/iPod will candidly tell you what it thinks of your breath – good or bad. Easily post the hilarious responses of any breath test on Facebook or Twitter for other friends to enjoy.

7.   DiabetesGrapher Free

Go! / App Store

Diabetes Grapher Free is the ad-sponsored version of Diabetes Grapher.

Will you glucose values and insulin units at a look with a comprehensible documentation. Always up-to-date, also months later still discoverably. Then you need Diabetes Grapher.
The Diabetes Grapher documents your glucose values and insulin units. With the saving of several daily values, your glucose values and insulin units are being documented in diagram for each day and month. All entered values can be read immediately. Additionally in the monthly opinion minimum, maximum and average glucose value and insulin unit is calculated for the entire month. Try still today the Diabetes Grapher.

Dr. Blaine Warkentine MD, a partner at a startup firm RidRx, is telling us that the firm is now selling directly to consumers its patent pending iStetho Adapter that can convert an iPhone/iPod touch and an old stethoscope into an electronic one. Also, the adapter is designed to work in tandem with the powerful iStethoscope Pro software that does many tricks with auscultation sounds, such as displaying sound spectrograms, replaying and emailing recordings, etc.

More about the adapter:
Convert with a scissors your old stethoscope into a digital one that you can use to store audio files of patients and email if needed. Our application amplifies the signal and eliminates audio outside of what is important for diagnosis. Our adapter simply offers a quick release sound proof channel for analog audio to be converted by your mobile devices microphone. Simple and sweet.

Direct link: link

Read more: link

Some interesting highlights:

about Voxiva.

We’re a mobile technology company that had a crazy idea nine years ago that mobile phones had something to do with health. We’ve spent the last nine years building a platform and building mobile health solutions around the world.

Do you think the iPhone got people thinking about the possibility of having a smart phone deliver a fairly rich application?

I think iPhones have done an amazing job of opening people’s eyes up to the possibility. People ask me a lot why the U.S. is thought of as so far behind the rest of the world in terms of mobile health. There are a couple reasons.

Read full interview: link