Within broad categories such as Clinical Reference, Medical News and Continuing Medical Education (CME), the amount of free content provided by Medscape Apps is staggering:

• 8,000+ Drug References, including interactions and pill images for brand name, generic and OTC drugs as well as herbals and supplements; guidelines for geriatric, pediatric and pregnancy; integrated dosing calculators
• 4,000+ evidence-based clinical references for diseases, conditions and procedures
• Resources for pathophysiology, epidemiology, differential diagnoses, workup & treatment options
• 30,000 clinical images integrated for diagnostic and decision making support
• Citations for drug and disease topics link directly to clinical evidence in MEDLINE Plus journal articles
• Medical News articles written by expert journalists across 30+ specialties and 250+ publications; medical conference coverage; FDA announcements, recalls and warnings; medical practice business trends
• CME/CE courses to meet licensure requirements in a variety of formats: patient simulation, case study, video lecture for 30+specialities and hundreds of topics.
• Medical Directory of nearly 500,000 physicians, pharmacies and hospitals by name, location and specialty

All clinical reference content is authored and reviewed by an independent team of 7,700 physicians and pharmacists from leading medical centers. According to Medscape literature, a rigorous editorial review process ensures the clinical content is current, evidence-based and written to support clinicians in practice.

In his review of the top ten free iPad medical apps, Iltifat Husain, MD stated that “Medscape provides comprehensive search functioning, allowing you to quickly look up a drug or how to do a lumbar puncture with lightning speed.”

An Emergency Medicine resident physician at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, Dr. Iltifat applauded Medscape for developing the app with offline access to content. “It is crucial for providers who don’t have a wireless plan for [their device] or for those who don’t have a dedicated Wi-Fi connection to count on,” he said.

Set Up

Developed by WebMD, LLC, Medscape Mobile is available as a free download across popular devices, including iPhone^®, Android^™, iPad^®, iPad mini^® and Kindle Fire^®. It is optimized for iPhone 5 and requires iOS v.5 or later.

Using the app does not require a subscription or upgrade fee—all clinical content updates happen automatically in the background over Wi-Fi or cellular network. However, you do have to register a free user account and professional profile, which grants unlimited access to the Medscape network and tailors content to your professional specialty.

Utility

One of the reasons Medscape Mobile is so popular is because it is easy to move around the app interface, acquire information and incorporate it into medical decision making either while seeing a patient or when conferring with other healthcare professionals. However, if you want to access the clinical reference material offline, be prepared for the download times—it can take up to ten minutes over Wi-Fi and about 15 minutes over 4G.

Once you are logged-in, you’ll notice the homepage features news, reference and education topics tailored to the specialty you selected when you registered a profile. I registered under the “press/media” profile option and therefore my homepage featured news pertaining to new drug approvals, legislation, research and new treatments for a variety of conditions. A colleague, who is a physician’s assistant based in New York City, had entirely different homepage stories and clinical news featured on her homepage.

While the reliability and validity of Medscape as a useful clinical reference cannot be argued, users of the most recent update (April 9, 2013- v.4.1), have identified features from previous versions that need to be re-integrated. In previous versions, there was a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen to allow for quick return back to the main screen.

When I used the app, there was a four-item navigation bar—Home, News, Reference, Education—that remained at the bottom of the screens I navigated. In addition, a Home button appears in the upper left corner of the screen but disappears when you have moved further into a content area, such as Drug Reference or Procedures. It may be the ability to return to Home without losing your place inside another area of the App that users are trying to describe and would find useful.

Finally, there is a need for a “quick search” that will allow you to acquire information on a specific topic (e.g., a drug) while working in another area (e.g., reading a monograph or reviewing pathophysiology).

Best Features

• Free access to extensive, clinically valid and reliable medical reference database
• Ease of use across mobile devices
• Ability to download reference library for use offline
• Ability to save articles, email articles and share on Facebook
• Ability to save CME activity, track earned credits & share activity via email
• Detailed images of pills, procedures, tables
• Continuing Medical education at the clinician’s fingertips
• Extensive search options within medical reference and education sections
• Calculators support US and SI Units
• Automatic updates
• Free Mobile Support via email to Medscape

What to Improve

• Download time is slow over Wi-Fi and cellular network
• Some users indicate download does not always run in the background and they are unable to use the app during download. Download pauses if device screen times out
• Minor navigation (return to home) and search features (between sections) could be improved

*#1 most download free app in the medical category, 2010 (Source: iTunes)

Karen M. Rider, M.A. is a freelance writer who specializes in wellness, health psychology and healthcare news. In addition to writing for print and digital publications, Karen writes marketing content for healthcare and wellness practitioners across a variety of specialties. View Karen’s online portfolio.