5 Essential Apps for Pharmacy Residents

Mobile applications are an essential resource for all pharmacy residents. How many of these apps do you use?

1. Epocrates

Ranked the No. 1 medical application among US physicians, Epocrates is a comprehensive drug information resource. Epocrates includes information on drug dosing, adverse effects, warnings and contraindications, black box warnings, and monitoring parameters. Additionally, Epocrates features a drug interaction check, pill identifier, and laboratory calculators.

Epocrates is free to use, but for $175 per year, you can upgrade to Epocrates Plus, which provides additional information on clinical practice guidelines, diagnostic tools, treatment guides, laboratory ranges, and alternative medicine.

More than 1 million active members, including 50% of US physicians, currently rely on Epocrates to enable better patient care. Epocrates is an essential app for all pharmacy residents.

Available on: iTunes and Google Play

2. MedPage Today

MedPage Today is a free medical news service that provides daily coverage of more than 30 specialties and annual coverage of more than 60 medical meetings and symposia.

Medpage Today provides clinical updates and health care policy coverage that directly affects the lives and practices of health care professionals.

It’s also a great free resource for pharmacy residents to stay up to date on breaking medical news and reference information.

In addition, residents can receive continuing education credits at no cost for participating in MedPage Today-hosted educational activities.

The app is used by more than 700,000 health care professionals in the country.

Available on: iTunes and Google Play

3. Guideline Central

Guideline Central is the most comprehensive resource for society-endorsed guidelines on the market.

Once the app is downloaded, you can add thousands of medical guidelines, representing all of the main clinical specialties and most well-known medical associations in the world, to your personal library. These guidelines can then be quickly viewed at a later time without requiring Internet access.

Additionally, the app offers search features for MEDLINE/PubMed, clinical trials, drug information, and clinical calculators.

The main disadvantage is that some guidelines cost $6-$11 to add to your library. However, Guideline Central currently offers more than 2600 free guidelines, with a rotating selection of new free guidelines.

Guideline Central is a great resource for condensing clinical guidelines in 1 place for pharmacy residents in all areas of practice.

Available on: iTunes and Google Play

4. CASP

The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) app is an innovative way of evaluating clinical literature.

Within the app, you can evaluate 8 types of clinical studies. Once you select a study type, the app guides you through a series of questions to clinically evaluate key aspects of the study. Your results can then be stored and e-mailed or converted to a PDF.

The app also incorporates a glossary section and calculators for number needed to treat and post-test probability with interpretation of the results.

The CASP app is a great tool for pharmacy residents to improve their clinical evaluation skills for journal clubs.

Available on: iTunes

5. ACEP Toxicology Antidote App

Created by the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Antidote app is a useful resource for information on antidotes used for common poisonings.

The app allows you to search for specific antidotes by entering a variety of key words. Alternatively, you can search for individual antidotes or scroll through an alphabetized list. The app also allows you to call the Poison Control center with the click of a button.

Each antidote page has information on dosing regimens with a section for important clinical notes. For further information, the app provides an extensive reference section for every antidote.

The Antidote app was rated as one of the best medical apps of 2015 from iMedicalApps.

Available on: iTunes and Google Play