New Mobile App Adds PD Tools

As smartphones and tablets become increasingly integrated with work and life, the apps to be used on them are becoming more tailored to specific users, including those in the renal profession.

Case in point is a clinical calculator app by developer QxMD that now includes peritoneal dialysis calculations. Here is a description of the Calculate app from a Baxter website:

“Calculate is a highly effective decision-support tool used by nephrologists, providing point-of-care tools and resources to assist in patient management. Now equipped with PD (Peritoneal Dialysis) Tools, Calculate makes it easier to manage important PD considerations including:

• Computing prescriptions
• Consulting PD-specific clinical practice guidelines
• Exploring online PD resources
• Determining patients' suitability for PD.”

RBT interviewed on of the founders of QxMD a few years ago, and he some interesting insight into the utility of mobile apps. “I’m a nephrologist, myself,” Vancouver, Canada-based Daniel Schwartz, MD, said in regards to another QxMD app called NephCalc. “These are all the tools I wish I had available to me, so we built them. We’ve collaborated with specialists in the field. People who are in academics, but have experience in education and clinical practice. We take what is important and make it practical for the end user. For content, we look to experts in the field.”

You can access a free PDF of this 2010 article from the RBT Content Library.

Speaking of PDFs, there is one more app that I’ve been using for about six months now that is a must-have for anyone with an iPad. It’s called GoodReader, and it is an excellent app that can store and organize all of your PDF and other content—like work documents or journal articles downloaded from the Web—on your tablet computer.  

With the app, you can add annotations to the document—highlights, notes, editing marks, even draw directly on the document, etc. These annotations can be easily extracted from the document and emailed as a separate file, so you and others can just see the changes made to the document.

Instead of lugging around stacks of PDFs, the app allows you to store hundreds of pages of documents on the iPad. It’s definitely a “killer app” that makes the iPad an indispensible tool.