Updated: September 9, 2022
There are continuous advancements in the development of emergency medicine mobile apps and mobile technology, but not all are created equal.
What are the best emergency medicine mobile apps in 2022? Here are our top 10 recommendations.
1. WikEM
WikEM, the Global Emergency Medicine Wiki, is the world’s largest and most popular emergency medicine open-access reference source. Its emergency medicine knowledge base has thousands of quick problem-specific notes to help you care for patients. The content is updated continuously from WikiEM.org, allowing for rapid reference of essential information.
It serves a broad range of medical practitioners, predominantly in emergency medicine, pediatric emergency medicine, critical care, EMS, and urgent care medicine.
WikEM is available for Android and iOS.
Cost: Free
2. palmEM: Emergency Medicine
palmEM is an all-in-one, rapid and succinct, evidence-based emergency medicine quick reference. Internal medicine, critical care, family practice, and urgent care clinicians will also find it helpful.
iMedicalApps.com called it an “excellent, rapid point-of-care reference perfectly designed for the time crunch of the emergency department.” According to the Apple Store, it is the number one medical app in 75 countries.
The app is continually updated and expanded. Unlike several other references, updates are free, and there are no yearly subscription fees.
palmEM is available for iOS.
Cost: $19.99
Related Resource: Top 6 Mobile Apps to Facilitate Doctor-Patient Communication
3. Emergency Medicine Flashcards
Although you may not have used flashcards since elementary school, you will find this app — The Atlas of ER Flashcards — comes in handy. It’s designed to be a portable learning tool to sharpen your visual diagnosis skills.
It contains 264 vivid, full-color flashcards covering emergency medicine’s most common and acute clinical presentations. Each flashcard provides diagnoses, clinical findings, and treatment information.
A Q&A section allows you to test your knowledge and the search tool shows you choices of words that appear in the text as you type. It also remembers past search terms to help you get back to a topic quickly.
You don’t need an internet connection to view the whole app, and it’s optimized for whatever size device you use, either phone or tablet.
The app is available for Android and iOS.
Cost: $39.99
4. mySCP Application Suite
The mySCP application suite is a secure, HIPAA-compliant, one-stop shop for clinical workflows, allowing clinicians to:
- View their schedule at a glance and patient list;
- Receive schedule change alerts and notifications;
- Send and receive secure text messages;
- Upload onboarding, credentialing, and licensing documents;
- Maintain accurate documentation practices.
mySCP is available for Android and iOS.
Cost: Free | Limited to SCP Health clinicians only.
5. Eye Handbook
Billed as “ophthalmology for your smartphone,” the Eye Handbook is a diagnostic and treatment reference app for eye care professionals. It is the most comprehensive app specific to eye care available on a smartphone and comes highly recommended for use by emergency physicians.
The app lets you connect with eye care professionals across the world. A forums component allows you to post pictures and ask questions in a wide variety of categories. You can also download videos and lectures to your smartphone.
Eye Handbook is available for Android and iOS.
Cost: Free
6. MediMath Medical Calculator
MediMath puts 144 of the most important medical calculators and scoring tools on your iPad or iPhone. The fast, native interface and comprehensive results help you “spend less time crunching numbers and more time caring for patients,” says the developer.
Features:
- 144 calculators and scoring devices;
- Categories, Search, Favorites, and Recents let you find the information you need quickly;
- Double-tap to add to favorites;
- Additional information, including equations, helpful hints, and references;
- Multimedia: for example, the NIH Stroke Score includes the necessary pictures;
- Always returns to where you left off.
Cost: 99 cents
MediMath is only available only on iOS. A similar app — MDCalc Medical Calculator — is available for Android.
7. Pedi-STAT
Pedi-STAT is a rapid reference for RNs, paramedics, physicians, and other health care professionals caring for pediatric patients in the emergency or critical care environment.
Features:
- Rapid results for airway interventions, including endotracheal tube sizes, depth, intubation medication dosages, ventilator settings, and sedation;
- Cardiac resuscitation data, including weight-specific dosages for resuscitation medications, cardioversion, and defibrillation;
- Access to age and weight-specific pediatric equipment, including Foley catheters, airway management, chest and NG tubes, peripheral and central line sizes, and more;
- Seizure medication dosages;
- Reference of age-specific normal vital signs
- Many more features.
You can access critical information quickly and accurately. With just a few taps, you can access all the necessary data to care for a pediatric patient in the emergency setting, including weight-based and age-specific medication dosages and equipment sizes.
Developed by an emergency physician, this app minimizes the risk of medical errors allowing the provider to spend more time caring for the patient and less time looking up and calculating doses.
Pedi-STAT is available for Android and iOS.
Cost: $4.99 (iOS) | $5.49 (Android)
8. Heart Pathway
Heart Pathway is a clinical decision tool for patients presenting to the ER with chest pain. It has been validated by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and is used daily at Wake Forest and its affiliate EDs.
The Heart Pathway algorithm has been shown to reduce patient length of stay by 12 hours, reduce cost by 14 percent per patient, and have MACE < 1%.
The Heart Pathway assists providers in answering the following questions:
- Should I admit my patient for stress testing, or can I discharge my patient from the emergency room?
- What is the likelihood that my patient’s presenting symptoms represent ACS?
- What is the likelihood that my patient will have an ACS event soon (within 30 days)?
Currently, Heart Pathway is only available for iOS.
Cost: Free
9. 5-Minute Emergency Medicine Consult
The Rosen & Barkin’s 5-Minute Emergency Medicine Consult app from Unbound Medicine, Inc. delivers practical, quick-read information on over 600 medical conditions seen in emergency medicine directly to your smartphone and tablet. You can search and browse for answers in concise topics organized to help save time.
Written and edited by practicing clinicians, this mobile resource is ideal for confirming accurate diagnoses and beginning treatment in the fast-paced environment seen in urgent and emergent care. Each entry is formatted in a proven, rapid-access format so you can quickly search for medical conditions, confirm a diagnosis, and begin treatment.
Features:
- Fully-updated details on more than 600 topics found in emergency medicine;
- Diagnoses spanning from pre-hospital to disposition stage;
- New topics include bath salt poisoning, polyneuropathy, leukocytosis, and more;
- Helpful “Pearls” and “Pitfalls” to help avoid common errors;
- ICD-9, ICD-10, and SNOMED codes listed in each entry;
- Universal Index Search to find terms across all indexes;
- “Favorites” for bookmarking important entries.
The app is available on Android and iOS.
Cost: $99.99
10. Emergency Central
Emergency Central, also from Unbound Medicine, Inc., is the complete mobile and web solution for emergency medicine professionals. Disease, diagnosis, and step-by-step treatment resources are integrated to link you to immediate answers.
You can identify possible diagnoses based on presenting symptoms, review details of specific conditions, determine the ideal diagnostic test sequence, and link to the drug guide for dosing information. It also updates automatically when you sync your mobile device.
Emergency Central includes:
- 5-Minute Emergency Medicine Consult;
- McGraw-Hill Medical’s Diagnosaurus DDx;
- Davis’s Drug Guide;
- Pocket Guide to Diagnostic Tests;
- And more.
Features:
- Focused information on patient presentations, treatment strategies, indications, and follow-up;
- Differential diagnoses on 1,000 symptoms;
- 5,000 trade and generic drugs;
- Cross Links for fast navigation between resources;
- Personalized favorites;
- Journal tables of contents delivered on publication date;
- Instant literature searching with MEDLINE Journals;
- Free updates and web access for one year.
Emergency Central is available for Android and iOS.
Cost: $159.99