A day in the life of a nurse with an iPhone

After I get to work, there’s a large battery of apps that make my life/work easier, safer and evidence-based.

• The Epocrates app is my trusty pharmacy companion. I double check proper doses, interactions, side effects.
• The EMRA ABx app is the emergency medicine infectious disease/antibiotic reference. It allows me to select the proper antibiotic for the patient’s clinical condition and exacerbating conditions.
• The MedCalc Pro app assists me in crucial clinical calculations: ABCD2 score to predict stroke after TIA, absolute neutrophil count for my febrile chemotherapy patient, corrected sodium in hyperglycemia, N-acetylcystiene dosing calculator for my acetaminophen-overdose patient, aO2/FiO2 ratio, is my patient developing ARDS?, peak flow calculator and many, many more.
• The Infuse app assists me in calculating infusion rates for vasoactive drips.
• The Procedure Tracker app lets me easily track invasive procedures for credentialing purposes.
• The Radiology 2.0 app allows me to take my downtime (what’s that?) and review my CT interpretation skills.
• Of course, the iPod app allows me to listen to some tunes but also download and listen to emergency medicine podcasts and stay current with breaking news in emergency medicine.

As my shift winds down and I head toward home, I log onto the App Store and check to see if there are any updates to my current apps that I use, and I download them. One last check of mail and messages—and, of course, Facebook—and then I set my alarms for the next day for all of this to begin again.

There are hundreds of ways I use my iPhone to assist me in getting where I need to be, making sure I have accurate information and keeping up to date with advances in my clinical field. You may use a BlackBerry, an Android or a Palm smartphone. What ever you use, know that it can be a useful tool for time management and communication and a well-stocked source for clinical information. Use it well and have fun.