Mobile apps designed with nurses in mind can help in maximising patient care In today’s digital era, nursing goes hand in hand with technology to achieve optimum patient care. Whether it is to cross reference a drug or to plan patient care, mobile apps designed specifically for nurses can help to inject convenience in carrying out daily tasks. Adding on to the five apps for nurses listed previously, here are five more apps that can help maximise patient care. 1. Nurse’s Pocket Guide Based on the 14th edition of the printed textbook, this app features 440 medical conditions with associated nursing diagnoses and interventions for users to search through with ease and consequently help in making effective care plans for patients. Each diagnosis listing includes a definition, related factors, defining characteristics and documentation guidelines. It also includes information on the basics of nursing process and its application, as well as sample care plans and tips for creating them. All these features are available even without an internet connection. 2. PatientTouch PatientTouch marries clinical workflows with safe communication of patient data through a secured platform. With the workings much like WhatsApp - allowing for texts, pictures and records to be shared - the big difference is that it is a secure platform that does not compromise on patient confidentiality. Real time data about the right patient is passed through to the right team member to avoid clinical errors, which in turn improves safety, quality, efficiency and nursing satisfaction, while also saving costs. PatientTouch is also designed with the Nursing Interventions module which features point-of-care vitals, assessments, safety best practices, real-time documentation and evidence-based best practices. 3. Nursing Central This is the app that acts as a nurse’s source of information for diseases, drugs, procedures and tests information. The functionality of the app is thanks to the integration of the different modules of Davis’s Drug Guide, which allows for a search through information on over 5,000 drugs: • Taber’s Medical Dictionary, which allows for reference of over 65,000 medical terms; • Davis’s Laboratory and Diagnostic Tests, which provides explanations of the most common diagnostic tests; • Diseases and Disorders, which is a complete coverage review of more than 250 medical conditions; and • Medline, which is the gateway to over 25 million journal citations and abstracts. 4. Dicom Mobile Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) is a standard for handling, storing, printing, and transmitting medical images. The Dicom Mobile app is a simple but powerful DICOM viewer app that allows viewing of 2D medical images in a variety of DICOM formats. This includes viewing patient’s x-rays, mammograms and MRI scans. The measurement tools also allow the user to measure length, area and angle. 5. Nursing Care Plan A nursing care plan is the end product of the nursing process, which provides a medium of communication between nurses, patients and healthcare providers to achieve specific healthcare outcomes. The Nursing Care Plan app offers more than 500 readily available care plans with nursing diagnoses, interventions and rationales. These can be printed out and communicated with the patient or customised to suit the patient’s condition. Source
