By Connie Gong (constance.gong@emory.edu)

Over the years, doctors have gone from carrying fat medical books to PDAs to mobile devices to house the rapidly growing medical information that we are responsible for knowing. As a pediatric emergency medicine

(PEM) physicians at Emory, we carry our own personal “medical consultants” on my phone. In this 3-part series, we will be covering the many apps, websites, and blogs that area available to the general public and provides the latest evidence based medicine (EBM) in PEM.

Today, we’ll be discussing applications or “apps.” There are so many available, many covering similar topics. Ultimately you need to pick your favorites. All applications can be found on iphone or android platforms.

When it comes to pediatric airways and remembering appropriate pediatric weight-based medication dosages, The Difficult Airway app is great. It provides you with the dosage of the rapid sequence medications, equipment size, contraindications, and how to approach different airways. This app is easy to use and navigate for your adult and pediatric airways.

When it comes to explaining a child’s condition, sometimes a picture really IS worth a thousand words. That’s the beauty of Med Sketch. This app includes basic anatomy pictures that you can draw on; you can even take a picture and draw on it to better highlight your approach to draining a patient’s abscess.

BiliCalc is an app designed by a pediatrician that uses the American Academy of Pediatrics 2004 “Management of Hyperbilirubinemia in Infants Greater than 35 Weeks of Age” to calculate the threshold for starting phototherapy based on the patient’s age, bilirubin level, and neurotoxicity risk. It quickly gives the ED doc info on need for admission and recommended follow-up care

And, finally we would be remiss if we did not mention our very own new CHOA app.  This application is useful especially to your patients in directing them to the nearest CHOA facility, giving information about wait times and the ability to save your spot in line at a CHOA urgent care. Once seen at a CHOA facility access to mychart or patients records is also accessible.  Just one more tool to provide information regarding your patient’s care.