Home Forums Discussions General Discussion The "i-Phone" Wow!

I am not inclined to buy gadgets and truth be known, I only stopped using my pager one week ago. But two weeks ago my phone broke and I had to buy a new one. In the past I have rescued whatever phone my children no longer deemed 'worthy' from that infamous drawer in the kitchen where stuff like that collects, then I take it to the phone company and I have them reactivate the old phone. This time there were no old phones left, two of my sons have the i-phones and love them, and so I went and looked at one in detail and wound up buying one.

SO, my point is,I got this phone and started playing with it. You gotta look into these things.

I can open "Care 360" the site of Quest Labs and see lab results for my patients.

I can open an "APP" that shows the IV doses for nearly all drugs available in IV form. Useful when I arrive at the hospital in the evening and hear, "the surgeon will take him to the OR in the morning, he is NPO after midnight, what do you want to do with his meds?"

I have an "APP" for Differential Diagnosis and one for ICD-9 codes.

I have an "APP" from the CDC with all of the immunization schedules sorted by age groups.

I can open "Epocrates" on the phone as well as my laptop.

I have a cute little "APP" called World Card, which allows me to photograph a persons business card and instantly convert it to the "contacts" file with about 90% accuracy, (meaning I have to look at it and touch up any entry where the 'clever' use of fancy type fonts has obfuscated the purpose of the card).

AND FINALLY, MY REAL POINT:
With an APP called, " RDP" I can open my server over the phone line and open Amazing Charts, from my cell phone, anywhere I have service. Yes the screen is tiny, I have to squint, and scroll across the screen to get to the point I want, you would never chart this way, BUT I will never have to go from the hospital ER over to the office to find out the list of meds, ever again!

Absolutely awesome.

And an APP called "RedLaser" allows the phone camera to read a bar code, and if you can buy it on the internet, it gives you a list of sites and the prices they offer. If you tap on one of the sites, it takes you to the website.

Amazing...

Martin,

How does "RDP" work? Is it a free app? I have been using LogMeIn Ignition on my iPhone, which works well to access the AC server in the office, but costs $30.

I love my iPhone as well, though at times I am less than thrilled with signal strength. I use the eye-chart. The EZ Level app can be used as a goniometer for range of motion documentation. It would be nice if all the apps would send incoming calls to voice mail when in use.

I think the iphone feature which has most revolutionized my business is simply the visual voicemail. I'll never go back to regular voice mail again ("you have thirty messages...message #1..."--uggh!).

John, RDP is remote desktop protocol. If you have remote desktop setup on your computer at work, and port forward to the correct computer you can use an RDP client to log-in. All business/pro versions of Windows allow you to remote in. I'm guessing it's a paid app, though there may be quality free ones. The best one on android is for purchase.

Peter, what company gives you visual voice mail? Is it Google voice? I just started using that, and much prefer the text messages and emails to the voice mails I get, and I don't get many.

The iPhone has visual voice mail; I guess it requires both the iPhone OS AND AT&T service, because iPhone can't do it without AT&T providing the service.

On the subject of gadgets, I am seriously considering buying a Nook: mainly because price has come down a little, and it can handle PDFs, of which I have thousands.

Peter, you might look at book prices for the Nook vs Kindle. I think the Nook has some neat features but I hear that it's books are more expensive.

Yes, the B&N books' prices created such an outrage that they recently lowered them significantly. However, I just want to read free PDFs and the Kindle is not PDF-friendly. I'll wait until the initial bugs are taken care of before I take the plunge.

Wow, that's better than the google voice service I have. Google voice creates a text interpretation of the voice mail, then texts and emails it to you. It isn't very accurate yet, but it's still useful.

About these gadgets, have you considered something like the Archos 9? I heard about it recently, and would like to try one. That, or one of those consumer HP convertible laptops with a touch screen. Guess I'm a sucker for gimmicks. But, I think touch screens will be useful soon

I think it's funny that B&N tried to carry over their premiums into the ebook space.

Edit: My phone does everything but view PDFs. I was thinking it would be good for reading. Maybe not as easy on the eyes as an ebook reader, but good for PDFs, websites, and forums. Then I could read AC/ub on the couch.

Hmm... that's really cool, hadn't heard about Archos 9. My phone does everything I need mobile-wise, so wouldn't know how to fit a netbook into my life. Now if the Archos 9 could make phone calls....

Here is at least one negative review for the Nook.

Here is at least one negative review for the Nook.[/quote]

Thanks. While some of the review is a little over the top: "junky google pre-1923 books" (many of which are exactly what I plan on using a reader for), I appreciate the review.

It's not easy to find a negative one. Most of the reviews only give glowing praises of the device. That's probably because Nook has been so guarded that most of the reviewers did not actually have access to the product.

The video of the review is pretty funny.

I must confess I am not completely certain whether it is the phone or the carrier that helps with visual voicemail which you can also access on the net. I know when had iMate through AT&T, I had it. But, Verizon hasn't given me that option so I guess it's the carrier.

I recall when we had this discussion before, and the vote was 10 users for iPhone and just I for Win6.1. George even went as far as to say Microsoft would be out of business in a few years.

I will state that until the FCC steps in and busts up AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, service will be ridiculously expensvie and the Unicels and U.S. Cellulars really can't compete along with others. I wonder how much longer T - Mobile can hang on.

But, the real issue is phones being limited to carriers. That's a joke. The real reason I can't get into the discussion with everyone on iPhones is it looks great, but it doesn't work well if I can't make a phonecall. And, why AT&T has terribel coverage is beyond me except that I guess the Moose all knock down the towers. It's great if you live in NYC, Denver or any town with a population over 100.

It would be nice if you could choose your carrier and all phones were "unlocked" and you could simply pick a phone. If you get a package deal with a two-contract, unless you have Martin's drawer (I do have one like it but no phones, especially after the burglary), it's hard to go out and buy a Droid or a Palm Pre, etc.

There is this cool site, though, where you can rent a phone for a month and try it out. But, you have to have the service.

Hate to debunk the theory above, but I live in a town with a population of 178 and my iPhone service is abysmal here too, until I get to the big city where I practice (pop. 768 ).

Otherwise, love my iPhone, too! There is a great colorblindness screen, way cheaper than ishihari (sp?) books, and a hearing screener which works well with noise cancelling headphones and literally saved me over a grand compared to the audiometer I used at the big practice I left before going out on my own.

So 750 seems to be the cutoff.