You don’t use leeches to treat patients any more.

Pictured: Not your patients.

Or, maybe you do. Leeches are “often the best option for safely removing congested blood from a wound,” according to surgeon Bill Lineaweaver of the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

Apparently, leeches work like an artificial vein, “drawing off the excess blood or the congested blood, until the person can actually grow back small, venous capillaries.”

So why are you still lugging around a dead tree medical dictionary and pocket guide?

From learning from your peers to handbooks, the world is available on your phone, if you know where to look. Here are five medical apps for nurses that are more worth ditching paper for.

1. Code Happy

Why do you need a social network for nurses?

To get a better job

To advance in your current job

To learn new best practices

To get emotional support

To improve the field

According to researchers at University of Pennsylvania, hospital nurses experience four times more job dissatisfaction than the national average. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing recommends having a support group of fellow nurses for preventing professional burnout.

That nursing is stressful and a good network helps with the stress is pretty intuitive, though it’s interesting that the research backs it up. What I found surprising was that the reason nurses are often left out of decision-making conversations about health-care operations and important medical decisions is that they don’t have the networking abilities, at least according to nursing textbook Professional Practice of Nursing Administration.

Dr. Lynn Parsons, Department Chair Nursing at Morehead State University, thinks professional networking is so important for nurses, and they’re so ill-prepared to do it well, that nursing schools should teach professional networking and nursing conferences should include it as a topic for papers and presentations.

Code Happy is a social network for nurses. It’s also one of Capella’s 10 apps for nurses.

Scrubsmag describes the interface:

The main screen of Code Happy shows floating bubbles representing nurses who have called for support in the past 24 hours. The small bubbles are nurses you may not yet know…the larger bubbles represent nurses you have added to your support circle. You can create your support circle by adding like-minded nurses or even find nurses who work in the same facility as you so you can trade shifts via the Code Happy App.

iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/code-happy/id520975390?ls=1&mt=8

Price: free

Android: not available

2. Nursing Dictionary – Medical Definitions and Drug Guide

HealthWriterHub has a great roundup of reasons to use a medical dictionary app instead of Google. No matter which app you choose, it’ll be easier and faster to use than an internet search.

To get the most value out of your app, you’ll need to choose one that updates regularly so you know your information is current. You also want to be sure you choose one from a reputable publisher so you know you can trust the information.

It’s also going to be important to make sure your app provides definitions when your phone is offline if you don’t have access to wifi or if there are parts of your facility where you can’t get cellular reception.

Nursing Dictionary is a good choice. It’s free. The big drawback is that it doesn’t work in offline mode.

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nursing-dictionary-medical/id1021594421?mt=8

Price: free app, ad-free for $.99

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farlex.dictionary.medical

Price: free app, ad-free for $.99

3. Nursing Central

According to the website, Nursing Central is the “premier source of disease, drug, and test information for nurses.”

Use it to search MEDLINE, find detailed information on diseases, tests, and procedures. It sends your favorite nursing journals’ table of contents to your phone. For example, the app has a database of 5,000 drugs. The included medical dictionary has more than 65,000 terms. All of that information is immediately available through the app.

One iPhone app reviewer called Nursing Central’s Glimpse feature “phenomenal.” Glimpse lets you highlight a word you want to define. On desktop, a definition box appears next to the highlighted word. On mobile, the Glimpse option appears next to the word.

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nursing-central/id300420397?mt=8

Price: free app, subscription $169.95/year

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.unbound.android.ubnc2&hl=en

Price: free app, subscription $169.95/year

4. Nurse’s Pocket Guide

Reviewers are really not happy with the pricing structure, so let’s get that out of the way. Yes, the app is free to download, but it’s just a shell. To get the value, the information, you need to subscribe to the service. It’s the same pricing system as Nursing Central.

Nurse’s Pocket Guide is significantly cheaper than Nursing Central, for a limited version of similar functionality. The medical app’s main purpose is helping you create effective nursing-care plans and accurate nursing diagnoses.

It’s got definitions, related factors, defining characteristics, prioritized actions/interventions, rationales, NIC/NOC classifications, and documentation guidelines for 440 updated NANDA-I 2012-2014 diagnoses.

You can also search by symptom. The app lists suggested actions and interventions by nursing priority.

iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nurses-pocket-guide-diagnosis/id669466772?mt=8

Price: free app, subscription $39.95/year

Android:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.unbound.android.ubnpl&hl=en

Price: free app, subscription $39.95/year

5. I.V. Drug Handbook

Using the wrong injection technique to administer a parenteral drug can damage nerves, muscles, and vasculature. It can also prevent a patient’s body from properly absorbing the drug.

I.V. Drug Handbook exists to make it easy to double-check your assumptions to make sure you don’t use the wrong size needle or cannula, for example.

With it, you can search more than 350 parenteral drugs including antibiotics, insulin, pain medications, and emergency drugs. Each drug’s listing includes the latest FDA warnings, comprehensive, evidence-based guidelines for administration, including covering preparation, dilution and compatibility, infusion rates, admixtures, supportive therapies, and monitoring.

iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/i.v.-drug-handbook/id389754102?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Price: $44.99

Android:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobisystems.msdict.embedded.wireless.mcgrawhill.ivdh&hl=en

Price: $44.99

Conclusion

Regardless of your stance on leeches, we can all agree, I hope, that medical apps are better than books for quickly finding up-to-date information. Ditch those dead trees and try out these apps. And let me know which of them are you favorite in comments. For more advice on the med tech that can help you do your job better, subscribe to the Capterra Medical Blog.