DigitalNeurosurgeon.com

I have recently been interviewed by the Americal Medical Association (AMA) on my iPhone application development. The full text interview is now available online, and has been mentioned on Twitter.

As the most urgent items on my tasklist for Surgical Neurology International have been completed, I had the opportunity to take up another hobby: iPhone development.

First, I have been working on an update for NeuroMind, my most successful iPhone app. Here is an actual screenshot of the stats for my apps. This contains the number of unique users, updates are not even counted here!

After more than 21.000 users downloading and installing the software, it’s time again for an update. I just submitted version 1.2 to the App Store, where it is now awaiting approval. It has been tested on iOS4 without any issues.

The new version contains some new scores and info on Surgical Neurology International. For details and screenshots, please visit the NeuroMind description on this site.

(click for full size version)

Second, I started reading “iPhone SDK Development” by Dudney & Adamson. For NeuroMind version 1.x I use XML to store the data. Currently I am expanding my knowledge on iPhone development, as I want to use SQLite or (probably) Core Data for a large update to version 2. A search function is currently not available in the app, and I would like to include that in the future.

Content will be more focused on scores and checklists, as those two are the categories that are used the most and valued the highest, according to the reactions I get on the software.

In the same time I am collaborating with a Canadian medical student, Jonathan Lau, who has a degree in computer science besides his medical education. He has experience in Java programming and offered to develop a NeuroMind version for the Android OS. Our current time schedule is to have both new versions available in Q4 – 2010.

Update after two months presence in the App Store: > 15.000 downloads for my iPhone apps! Thanks to all people who downloaded and are using the software. I hope you like it.

I already wrote a post that some of my iPhone apps have been mentioned on other weblogs. Now there is a new blog to add to that list. It’s called Medicalchemy and it’s the blog from Nurse Practitioner Degree. They wrote a post titled “33 iPhone Apps Every Healthcare Professional Needs” and I am happy to see that NeuroMind made it into that list.

What’s going on at the moment? I have applied for a university grant on m-learning, and proudly mentioned all these blogs that highlighted my iPhone apps (with particular attention to the interview on iMedicalApps.com). Further I was pleasantly surprised to see that Safe OR from QxMD is for free now. They make interesting apps, but the former price of €7,99 was too much for that app. Safe Surgery is for free, and got a nice reference in one of the Safe OR reviews (click for original size):

Dutch comment on Safe OR, referring to Safe Surgery

Regarding iPhone development, I have paused that now. Temporarily, I guess. Just waiting for iPhone OS 4 to arrive, before continuing.

For now, I am making progress with my efforts in open web standards. As there is some NDA involved in my current project, I cannot do into details on the content now. But I’ve improved my knowledge of CSS and JavaScript / Jquery already, and expect to learn more in the future. I am especially grateful for the nice examples by Soh Tanaka and the Nifty Corners article.

Planning to update NeuroMind’s content soon, and continuing development in these open standard on a new app.

It is very nice to receive all positive reactions on my iPhone efforts. It’s even more flattering when people want to interview you, or post about your software on their blog. Here is what happened in the last few weeks.

iMedicalApps.com
Interview with me on iPhone development and a little Health IT in general. The interview was done by Felasfa Wodajo, MD (@OrthoOnc on Twitter).

iPhoneMedicalApps
Posted about Safe Surgery app in their category “New and Noteworthy iPhone Medical apps”.

KevinMD.com
KevinMD.com is well known place for medical blogs… and in this item Iltifat Husain, Yousif Alkadhi, MD, and Satish Misra blogged about 10 free iPhone medical apps that every doctor can use. NeuroMind is mentioned at place 7… rather proud on that!

Talking about proud… NeuroMind has been downloaded more than 12,500 times in the first month after release! :-D

And SLIC is doing fine as well: the target audience is much more specific, leading to 1200 downloads in the first month. But: the manuscript for publication in a scientific journal is finished, and I hope to submit next week (after final approval of co-authors).

By now, the updates for NeuroMind and Safe Surgery have been approved and are available in the App Store. Which made me remember to update the screenshots of NeuroMind! I uploaded new images (of the screens that changed) for the App Store, and on my website.

Recently I re-discovered how to use the magic wand tool in Adobe PhotoShop, so it was easy to remove the extra whitespace surrounding the iPhone screenshots in landscape mode, and put them a little over the four “portrait-oriented” screenshots. Which I think makes it look prettier.

The screenshots are meant for use in the NeuroMind section of this site, but for fun: here they are!

(click for large version)

I submitted updates for both the NeuroMind and Safe Surgery app to the App Store. They’re now waiting for approval: it should take some days before upgrades appear on your phone.

NeuroMind now goes to version 1.1 with these updates:

Content

• Anatomy > Peripheral category added with three images
• Renamed “WHO Safe Surgery” to “Safe Surgery”
• Scores > Other > ASA class added
• Updates menu-item added
• Smiley-icon added for each item that is new in the latest version

Technical

• Improved auto-rotation function for smoother user experience.
• Updated version number

(click for large version)

Safe Surgery 1.01 just had an updated notation of the copyright information.

Enjoy the software! With >7000 downloads of NeuroMind and >1100 downloads of SLIC so far, I guess that should be no problem! :-)

Only 1 week after my first post on a new iPhone app on safe surgery, I was ready to submit it to the App Store. Not celebrating the Dutch carnival provided enough time to finish development and testing.

My new application is based on the Safe Surgery Saves Lifes checklist from the World Health Organization (WHO). A very nice read on the subject is provided in Dr Atul Gawande’s new book: The Checklist Manifesto. Scientific background is provided in the New England Journal of Medicine.

(click for more info)

I submitted version 1.0 to the App Store on February 15, 2010. Normally, it should take between 3-7 days before you can download it (for free!) in the App Store.

I couldn’t resist the temptation of creating a simple no-nonsense surgical checklist for the iPhone. I searched the App Store, and I could only find Safe OR from QxMD. Although I think that QxMD is making pretty cool medical software for mobile devices, their surgical checklist is -in my humble opinion- overpaid, and unnecessarily complicated.

So I think I can do better? Yes, I can! And it won’t even take that much time. I started creating the graphical user interface based on the official WHO checklist, and decided that scrolling is not the way to go. I think that each section can fit into one screen, like:

(click for large version)

Of course, this is rather rudimentary. The layout definitely needs some improvement (read: alignment) and some details. Then I will add some functionality. I do have a nice idea for a practical solution that Safe OR does not offer -as far as I know- but I don’t know if I will include it in the first version of Safe Surgery.

I’d say… I’ll keep you posted!

The Maastricht University (MU) magazine (called the “Observant”) has published its article on iPhone apps made by MU faculty or students (in Dutch). It’s also available online.

I particularly like the Dutch phrase “Met NeuroMind kunnen in een handomdraai neurologische diagnoses gesteld worden”. Translated in English it would sound like “With NeuroMind one can easily diagnose neurological diseases”. However, there is a subtle language humor in “met een handomdraai”. Literally, it means “with a turn of the hand”, but it’s used as a metaphore for “easily”. In this case, the literal translation is correct as well, because DDx category switches between text mode and mindmap using the iPhone’s autorotation feature.

It’s not just the language that “has a twist”…

And that’s two! Last week SLIC has been accepted for the App Store, and today NeuroMind has been added as well! I like this screenshot, and although in Dutch, you’ll get the point! ;-)

Both apps together (click for full size)

I intend to publish an article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal about both. Currenly I am preparing the first manuscript on SLIC. Tomorrow, the new version of the Maastricht University magazine will appear that contains an interview with me on the apps (in Dutch).