Abstract
Aim
Smartphone applications have a great scope for revolutionising the medical field and are becoming increasingly utilised in clinical practice. They are advantageous as they are timesaving and readily available at the touch of a button. We reviewed all the T&O clinically relevant applications available for doctors on Apple's ‘App Store’.
Methods
A search was performed using the following terms: Trauma, Orthopaedics, Ortho, Musculoskeletal and Fracture. Applications that were in any language other than English were excluded. The applications were subsequently categorised into: ‘clinical’, ‘learning and reference’, ‘hospital guidelines’ and ‘patient education’.
Results
136 of the 575 were relevant to T&O from the search conducted using the above terms. 18 of these applications were aimed at patient education and 118 were designed for use by doctors. 91 applications were for learning and referencing purposes, 4 were local hospital guidelines and only 23 were designed for use in clinical practice. 2/23 clinical applications were validated by official bodies and only 1/23 was rated by users.
Conclusion
It is clear that smartphone use is becoming more popular in clinical practice; however there is a need for developers to create more validated applications of higher quality for T&O surgeons.
