Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · May 2016
Initial Experience of the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine Coags Regional Smartphone Application: A Novel Report of Global Distribution and Clinical Usage of an Electronic Decision Support Tool to Enhance Guideline Use.
Decision support tools have been demonstrated to improve adherence to medical guidelines; however, smartphone applications (apps) have not been studied in this regard. In a collaboration between Vanderbilt University and the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (ASRA), the ASRA Coags Regional app was created to be a decision support tool for the 2010 published guideline on regional anesthesia for patients receiving anticoagulation. This is a review of the distribution and usage of this app. ⋯ This is the first publication of download and usage data concerning medical smartphone apps. It provides a template for future app uptake and use in clinical practice. The app platform provides a new mechanism of rapidly disseminating guidelines and facilitating distribution of frequent updates.