New Look for VisualDx

New version of VisualDx

ON TUESDAY, MARCH 1, your VisualDx experience will change. The look will change, yes. But, at the heart of the new VisualDx is an expanded experience. The most widely used decision support system will continue to offer the great visual diagnostic support you have come to rely on and trust. Now, we are broadening our system to the chief complaint across general medicine.

VisualDx Sympticons.

NEW Double the diagnoses. From 1,300 to 2,700 diagnoses, VisualDx will provide a more holistic decision support.

NEW The Sympticon™. Look for these symptom icons to visually demonstrate symptoms of disease.

NEW More Images. The world’s best medical image library has expanded to include more photos, x-rays, and now the Sympticons.

NEW Guided Questionnaires. Choose to be guided with a questionnaire and/or type in additional findings. VisualDx can help you remember which questions are relevant to a particular symptom or complaint.


SAME GREAT FEATURES:
Concise expert content and therapy guidelines for use at the point of care.
Patient handouts for key diagnoses.
Integrated into the workflow: mobile, electronic health record, UpToDate.
Earn CME

VisualDx is available for the web and as a mobile app.

Questions regarding the VisualDx? Contact medref@tulane.edu

Old version of VisualDx goes away March 1, 2016.

New! New York Times Online for the Tulane Community

The New York Times Online is now available for Tulane student, faculty and staff members via an Academic Pass Subscription. This one year online subscription, which includes access to the New York Times online as well as NYT mobile apps, can be activated with your tulane.edu email.

To access the Academic Pass to NYTimes.com, each user must follow these steps:

1. Go to nytimes.com/passes
2. Create a free NYTimes.com account using your Tulane email (tulane.edu) address.  If you already have an NYTimes.com account using your Tulane email address, you may log in with those credentials.
3. You have successfully claimed a Pass when you see the Start Your Access screen
4. Now you can enjoy seamless full access to NYTimes.com, INYT.com and NYT mobile apps just by logging into your NYTimes.com account from any location, on or off campus.
5. Download NYTimes.com mobile apps at nytimes.com/mobile

Already have a registered NYTimes.com account with your Tulane email?

1. Visit nytimes.com/passes
2. Log into your NYTimes.com account.
3. You have successfully claimed a Pass when you see the Start Your Access screen.

Some caveats about NYT Academic Pass:

Does not include e-reader editions, Premium Crosswords or The New York Times Crosswords apps. NYTimes apps are not supported on all devices. Access to archived articles within the date range 1923-1980 is limited. You must have a valid email address from a participating school. Other restrictions may apply.

More information: http://library.tulane.edu/news/new-york-times-online-tulane-community

DynaMed Mobile App *** BIG CHANGES!!!!! ***

Effective today, users no longer need a serial number for the DynaMed app.

Instead, users can manage the app themselves from the Dynamed homepage.

Big changes include:

1. Users will NO LONGER need to download the Skyscape/Omnio container apps. The new app will be “Stand-alone”. 
2. Subscriptions will now be for 6 months instead of 1 year. 
3. Users will need to reactivate every 6 months from a TU computer. 
4. Current users who have a current key will still have 1 year from their most recent activation to move to the new app. 

Detailed directions, after the cut

Mobile spotlight: ReadCube

Looking for a new way to read and manage articles? Check out ReadCube.

ReadCube is the ultimate research toolkit. Features include enhanced PDFs, personalized recommendations, paper management, a citation tool, a tablet app, sync & backup, and watch folders.

ReadCube works with both Mac and Windows, and is available for iPhone and iPad.

To see more about ReadCube, check out their website at https://www.readcube.com/.

Get VisualDx Mobile FREE

Get VisualDx Mobile FREE
Download to Apple or Android devices

Your institution's license to VisualDx includes on-site and remote mobile access. VisualDx is available as native iPhone, iPad, and Android apps.

From a campus computer or through the library proxy:

1. Click here: http://libproxy.tulane.edu:2048/login?url=http://www.visualdx.com/institutional-signup

2. Create your username and password as instructed.

3. Once you have your username and password, you can download the free VisualDx mobile app on your mobile device from the Apple store or from Google Play.

4. Launch the VisualDx app from your device and sign in using the username and password you created.

Physicians, residents, and students are on the go, which makes VisualDx Mobile the most efficient way to retrieve urgently needed information.

New AccessMedicine App now available

New from AccessMedicine: 

The AccessMedicine App, the first off-line mobile application of the world-renowned medical education platform, is now available for download onto all iOS and Android devices. The big benefit of the new app is that users will now be able to gain access to diagnostic resources in an off-line environment. Resources include:

• Quick Medical Dx & Rx – Providing concise evidence-based outlines of conditions and disorders most often encountered in medical practice, the Quick Medical Dx & Rx Tool is derived from the leading annual guide to internal medicine. Perfect for high-yield review or for quick reference in the clinical setting.

• Visual Diagnostic Tool for Dermatology – This tool facilitates visual diagnosis by providing color images of skin lesions, plus a summary outline of skin disorders and diseases derived from the world's leading visual atlas of dermatology, Fitzpatrick's Color Atlas of Clinical Dermatology.  

• Differential Diagnosis Tool – With more than 1,000 diagnoses found on the acclaimed Diagnosaurus® app, this unique tool efficiently allows users to browse by symptom, disease, or organ system at the point of care.

• Diagnostic Tests – Powered by Pocket Guide to Diagnostic Tests, this tool is a quick reference to the selection and interpretation of commonly used diagnostic tests including laboratory procedures in the clinical setting.

Download the AccessMedicine App from iTunes for Apple iPhones and iPads and from Google Play for 

Android devices.  Log in with your AccessMedicine personal account - which you can create here: 

http://libproxy.tulane.edu:2048/login?url=http://accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/

At this time, the AccessMedicine App is available exclusively to institutional subscribers, including Tulane. 

Mobile Spotlight: Flash Card Apps

Recently we've had some students asking about flashcard apps. Here are some suggestions (all for iPhone/iPad unless noted).

Make your own:
Flashcards Deluxe ($3.99)
Includes pictures and sounds, zoom into pictures, and auto-repeat sounds.

gFlashPro - Flashcards & tests ($3.99)
Has ability to include zoomable images and audio/video clips directly through gFlash editor.

iFlash ($14.99)
Add audio and image to any card side.

Premade:
Modality learning/epocrates ($24.99 & up)
Various flash card apps based on medical textbooks (including Netter's).

Online:
Cram Medical

For reviews of medical apps, check out Imedicalapps.

Looking for more apps? Here's a curated list from medical students at the University of Minnesota: http://www.meded.umn.edu/students/ipad_apps.php. 

iPhone apps from Wiley Current Protcols

Current Protocols is a resource of procedures and protocols for the lab. Whether it's  Immunology Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Mouse Biology, or Neuroscience, Current protocols provides step by step directions, ingredient lists and even videos for some techniques.

But that's not all. Current Protocols now offers three apps for iOS to increase your productivity in the laboratory:  Biological Buffer Calculator, CD Antigens Information Finder, and a DNA/RNA/Protein and General Molecular Weight Calculator. Click the link for more information in iTunes preview.

Biological Buffer Calculator 
Chemical/biochemical pocket companion designed by the editors of Current Protocols. Choose from a list of all of the commonly used biological buffer systems, enter your desired volume, pH, and buffer concentration, as well as the concentrations of your stock solutions of the conjugate acid and base, and the calculator will inform you of the exact volumes of these stock solutions to mix in order to obtain the buffer needed.

CD Antigens Information Finder
CD molecules are cell-surface antigens identifiable by their reactions with specific monoclonal antibodies, which represent an important system for identifying and differentiating human cells. The CD Antigen Information Finder was adapted from Current Protocols in Immunology (Beare, et al., 2008. Monoclonal Antibodies to Human Cell Surface Antigens. Curr. Protoc. Immunology. 80:A.4A.1–A.4A.73) and includes data on the molecular weight, family, molecular structure, cellular expression patterns, function, and biomedical usefulness of the molecule. The database is searchable by the official CD designation of the antigen as well as by synonyms and other keywords including associated diseases and tissue/organ names.

DNA/RNA/Protein and General Molecular Weight Calculator

Chemical/biochemical pocket companion designed by the editors of Current Protocols. Type in or copy/paste any nucleic acid base sequence, any protein or peptide amino acid sequence (in one- or three-letter codes accessible from a convenient menu), or any standard chemical formula, and obtain the molecular weight. Allows estimates of the molecular weights of unknown nucleic acid or protein/peptide sequences on the basis of sequence length and average base/amino acid molecular weights. Also includes a list of 1200 of the most commonly encountered organic and inorganic compounds, which may be immediately selected in order to calculate their molecular weights, as well as an easy-to-access list of the chemical elements, which may be plugged into any chemical formula.

BrowZine for iPhone now available

Via our friends at Browzine, Tulane's free app for literature surveillance & table of contents delivery: 

BrowZine for iPhone is now available, dramatically expanding the ways you can engage with BrowZine to find, read and follow your favorite journals!

With this new release, you have the option to create a BrowZine Account. If you have BrowZine installed on your iPhone and iPad, you may now “sync” your My Bookshelf contents. If you add a journal to My Bookshelf or clear a new article notification from your iPad, it will automatically appear on your iPhone. 

      

 

More improvements after the break

Mobile Spotlight: CDC Vaccination Schedule App for iOS available

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a smartphone version of the 2014 adult & child vaccination schedules.

2014 CDC Vaccine Schedules app for clinicians and other health care professionals offers you immediate access to CDC’s latest recommended immunization schedules. See childhood, adolescent, adult and catch-up vaccine schedules and footnotes on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch devices. Download this free app from the iTunes App Store.

While it's a great app, some limitations exist, specifically:

•  "No functionality to input a child’s age and current vaccines to get a personalized catch-up vaccine list." (the CDC web-based interactive vaccine catch-up site does offer personalized catch-up lists)
• No "ability to print, email or open the links and embedded PDFs in any other app."
• "...while the app has a useful list of contraindications and precautions to commonly used adult vaccines, there is no analogue for pediatric vaccines — users have to look within each vaccine individually to find that data, which is not available for every vaccine."

Overall, it's about time the CDC came up with a mobile version of their vaccine schedules. It remains to be seen how fast it will update when new schedules are issued, which as you know, change every year. 

Read a full review by Dr. Eli Specher at imedicalapps:
http://www.imedicalapps.com/2014/06/cdc-vaccine-immunization-schedule-patients/

New from VisualDX: Competitive Quiz Feature

From the VisualDx Blog:

New VisualDx Mobile Quiz for iOS
VisualDx Quiz for the iPhone and iPad tests your knowledge of visual presentations of disease. Select a specialty area such as Infectious Disease, Dermatology or Pediatrics, or select “All Specialties” to begin. For each question, VisualDx Quiz shows you an image, asks you to identify the correct diagnosis from a multiple-choice list, and tracks your score. Practice on your own, or play competitively against colleagues, with scores posted to iOS Apple Game Center leaderboards. Quiz histories are stored privately on your mobile device, allowing you to review diagnoses you missed. Look up diseases in VisualDx to see more images and access expert information on diagnosis and management. More info

To play, just update or download your VisualDx app, or stop by the reference desk & take it for a spin on one of our Matas iPads.

VisualDx is a dermatology resource + mobile app oriented for problem solving: search by symptoms, visual clues and other patient factors, by diagnosis, or by medication. VisualDx clinical decision support provides instant access to concise disease information and high-quality medical images to assist in diagnosis, to direct testing, and to guide management and therapy decisions.

Mobile Spotlight: Browzine Updates

Browzine, TU's literature surveillance app for your tablet, has several new improvements:

Subject Search - Users may now search to find a subject area of interest. This feature makes it even easier to discover, browse and read journals in BrowZine.

New Content - Recent additions to supported publishers and journals include: American Dental Association, Bloomsbury Publishing, Human Kinetics, MIT Press. Full list of supported publishers.

Did you know? Browzine can directly export journal information to RefWorks, but not EndNote. Here's why:

Why is EndNote not available as an export option? We appreciate that many researchers rely on EndNote and recognize the value of integrating with this service. However, our integration with EndNote depends on Thomson Reuters writing an API for EndNote and they have yet to do so.

Installing Browzine: Download the free app. When you launch BrowZine, select Tulane University from the drop down list. Then just log in with your off-campus credentials, i.e.: your email username (without the '@tulane.edu') and password.

Mobile spotlight: Epocrates RX

A leading app for healthcare professionals, Epocrates RX is a point-of-care app that allows you to:

• Review drug prescribing and safety information for thousands of brand, generic, and OTC drugs
• Check for potentially harmful drug-drug interactions among up to 30 drugs at a time
• Identify pills by imprint code and physical characteristics
• Perform dozens of calculations, such as BMI and GFR

Epocrates RX is available for both iOS and Android operation systems for free.

An Epocrates Essentials subscription is also available (for $159). With the subscription, you get additional disease information, alternative medications, lab guides, and more clinical tools and content.

Epocrates Essentials is offered free annually during the month of August to all U.S. medical students while they are in school. Check out this FAQ for more information.

The Matas library will post a note when this free download is available in August.

Important News Regarding the Micromedex Drug Information Mobile App

Do you currently have the Micromedex® Drug Information mobile app installed on one or more of your Apple® devices?

Effective March 31, 2014, the Micromedex Drug Information app, which was previously free to any Apple device user, will be retired.

In its place, you're invited download the new version of the app, Free Micromedex Drug Reference for Internet Subscribers, available now in the iTunes® store. It functions exactly the same, and has the same content as the prior app. Access to the new Free Micromedex Drug Reference for Internet Subscribers is included with your online subscription to Micromedex 2.0, and provides the same evidence-based clinical decision support content you've come to rely on from our entire portfolio of mobile apps. This valuable tool is now available without charge exclusively to Micromedex Internet Subscribers only. Download the new app today! (The old one will no longer work.)

Directions to Install

1. To get started, you'll first need your password. Follow the simple steps below to find this information:
   Login to your online subscription to Micromedex 2.0 (via micromedexsolutions.com)
2. Click on the mobileMicromedex link near the top of the application
3. Write down your password; you'll need this later (the password is case-sensitive)
4. Search for Free Micromedex Drug Reference for Internet Subscribers on the iTunes Store & download the app to your device. Download from iTunes here
5. Launch the app, enter your password, and you are on your way!

Micromedex is here to help!
For more information about this change, see Frequently Asked Questions or contact
Micromedex at 800-525-9083, option 3, or by clicking on the link below to generate a support request:
http://support.micromedex.com/support/mobile/freedrugreference/

Android & Windows phones - the old app is still free & available on Google Play & Windows Store.

Mobile spotlight: iMedicalApps top 10 iOS apps for February

iMedicalApps recently released a new ‘top 10’ list of medical apps for iPhone. The site, which provides physician reviews of medical & healthcare apps, is trying to find the best medical apps on a monthly basis. (there's also one for January) There's several more on the list, but the four below are all A) free and B) received the best reviews. Click through for screenshots, links to iTunes & the other apps.

• ASCVD Risk estimatorby the American College of Cardiology (ACC): risk stratification tool from the ACC and the American Heart Association to help providers estimate 10 year and life time risks for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD).
• UBC Med Formulary: "must have for medical students, but it can also be used by residents and practicing physicians." Includes quiz feature. 
• BabelMesh: a cross-language tool for searching MEDLINE/PubMed. More here
• Pediatric BP calculator: blood pressure calculator for Pediatrics, based on WHO & CDC's growth chart data 

Full list:
http://www.imedicalapps.com/2014/03/top-10-iphone-medical-apps-february/

Mobile spotlight: Figure 1

Healthcare professionals: looking for a way to share photos of interesting cases with automatic face blocking and an easy way to remove personally identifying patient information? Check out Figure 1, an app for both iOS and Android operating systems.

With Figure 1, you can share and access medical images categorized by anatomy or specialty, and discuss case presentation, diagnosis, and treatment with other healthcare professionals. This app also features an easy consent to use form.

Check out Figure 1 for free from the Apple app store or from Google Play.

No smartphone? You can still check it out for free at https://figure1.com/.

Happy sharing!

A preview of what you'll find on Fig. 1

Mobile spotlight: Plague, Inc.

Interested in infectious disease epidemiology? Love movies like Contagion? Ready to be responsible for a plague that decimates the world population and leads to the collapse of human civilization?

From the iTunes App Store:

Can you infect the world? Plague Inc. is a unique mix of high strategy and terrifyingly realistic simulation.

Your pathogen has just infected 'Patient Zero'. Now you must bring about the end of human history by evolving a deadly, global Plague whilst adapting against everything humanity can do to defend itself.

Brilliantly executed with innovative gameplay and built from the ground up for iPhone & iPad, Plague Inc. evolves the strategy genre and pushes mobile gaming (and you) to new levels. It’s You vs. the world - only the strongest can survive!

As the creator of your plague, select an outbreak site, pick out some modes of transmission, a few symptoms, and a couple of mutation abilities, then monitor the development of your disease (and the demise of mankind). But make sure you watch out for the development of a cure- the game ends once everyone is dead from your plague or a cure is found!

Available from the iTunes app store for iPhone and iPad for $0.99. Also available from Google Play for Android.

Reminder: Dynamed access ceases Tuesday, December 31st.

Due to budget constraints, Tulane access to Dynamed ends Tuesday, December 31st. This includes access to Dynamed content in the Skyscape mobile app for Android and iOS.

TU provides clinical point of care resources through: First Consult, Micromedex, Procedures Consult, VisualDx, AccessMedicine, and Clinical Key.

UptoDate will continue to be available both on campus and through Meditech.

For a complete list see the Matas Library Clinical Portal:  http://libguides.tulane.edu/Tools

Contact medref@tulane.edu if you have any questions.

Dynamed access ceases Tuesday, December 31st

Due to budget constraints, Tulane access to Dynamed ends Tuesday, December 31st. This includes access to Dynamed content in the Skyscape mobile app for Android and iOS.

TU provides clinical point of care resources through: First Consult, Micromedex, Procedures Consult, VisualDx, AccessMedicine, and Clinical Key.

UptoDate will continue to be available both on campus and through Meditech.
For a complete list see the Matas Library Clinical Portal: http://libguides.tulane.edu/Tools


Contact medref@tulane.edu if you have any questions. 

Mobile Spotlight: LifeArmor

Created by the National Center for Telehealth and Technology (T2), a component center of the Defense Centers for Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, housed under the Department of Defense, LifeArmor is a mobile app designed to provide information on 17 topics of importance to members of the US military and veterans, including depression, life stress, mild traumatic brain injury, military sexual trauma, and post-traumatic stress.

Under each of the topic areas, four menu options are available for further information: Learn, which provides details about the topic; Assess, which provides an assessment in that topic area; Tools, which provide techniques to self-manage problems and symptoms in the topic area; and Videos, which provide testimony from members of the military community about their struggles and triumphs in the topic area.

LifeArmor is available for both iOS and Android. LifeArmor and other apps for military members and veterans, as well as for the health-care professionals who serve them, can be downloaded at the National Center for Telehealth and Technology (T2) website.