Medtronic creates iPad apps for salesforce:
Medtronic Inc. (NYSE:MDT) has armed its Apple iPad carrying salesforce with proprietary apps to aid their sales efforts.
"iPad helps us communicate with clinicians; it helps our stories come to life. The sales representative can pull up information quickly and use graphics to tell a story in a very memorable way," Medtronic Neuromodulation division drug delivery marketing director Linnea Burman said in prepared remarks that Apple Inc. (NSDQ:AAPL) published on its website.
In the hands of a medical device sales rep, one way to look at an iPad is a library of digitized marketing materials, but the company has also enabled them to order and register products and a content management application that works within FDA regulations for confidentiality and helps sales staff and managers organize and distribute product information by audience or topic, according to the Apple website.
"iPad lets us get information to our customers much quicker than we could before," Medtronic CIO Michael Hedges said in prepared remarks.
Medtronic, which last November gave 4,500 of the Apple tablet computers to its employees, isn’t the only medical device company arming their sales force with iPads. The Wall Street Journal in December wrote "There appears to be something of an iPad arms race in the $200 billion medical-devices sector."
iPods enter orthopedic surgery:
Smith & Nephew plc (NYSE:SNN) partnered with Brainlab to develop the Dash Smart Instrument system, an orthopedic surgery navigation tool to assist in knee and hip joint replacements. The system relies on a portable infrared camera (3D it looks like) and a paired iPod Touch to calculate relevant angles and positions. The product is yet to receive FDA approval.
Survey: 13 percent of health devices on the net:
IDC Health Insight’s latest study based on an online survey of 1,200 people explores consumer’s health technology use and purchase behavior of personal health and fitness monitoring, mobile health applications, medical care in non-traditional settings, personal health records and aging in place technologies — 13.4 percent of survey takers who said they used devices currently use wired or wireless devices. More than 10 percent did not know whether the device they used had those capabilities, writes MobiHealthNews.
Mobile apps for medical edu:
Every year in April, we survey the HMS medical students about their use of mobile devices.
At HMS, we encourage students to buy the device of their choice – iPhone/iPod/Ipad, Android, Blackberry, Kindle etc. We then support these devices with software licenses and controlled hosted applications.
Our Mycourses Learning Management System has a Mobile Applications tab. Under General Resources, we offer a mobile version of all course content via connected devices (WiFi, 3G etc.). We also offer a Kindle version for downloading course content to the device.
On our Mobile Resources page, we offer downloads of many popular applications. Most include native iPad support.
What are the most popular in 2011?
Dynamed – a clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other health care professionals for use primarily at the ‘point-of-care’ .
Unbound Medicine uCentral – a collection of popular titles including 5 Minute Clinical Consult, A to Z Drug Facts, Drug Interaction Facts (an interaction checker), Review of Natural Products,Medline Table of Contents Alerts, and Medline Auto Alerts.
VisualDx Mobile – a visual decision support tool. VisualDx merges medical images with a problem-oriented findings-based search.
Epocrates Essentials – an all-in-one mobile guide to drugs, diseases, and diagnostics which includes Epocrates Rx Pro, Epocrates SxDx, and Epocrates Lab.
iRadiology – a compendium of over 500 unique images demonstrating classic radiological findings.
A weekly roundup of new developments in wireless medical technology and mHealth.
“40+242 Work” image by bark acquired on Flickr.