USBMIS SkinDX review
Hello everyone , this time we are going to be reviewing USBMIS´s SkinDx for Palm OS which was launched a couple months ago. The company is marketing this product not only as a reference aid, but mainly as a diagnostic tool for dermatologic conditions due to its “intelligent database”. Will it live up to the hype? , that’s what we will be going to see.
USBMIS kindly provided us with a full product so we could make a thorough evaluation of it. This review has been done on my trusty old palm Tx and a 4 GB SD card.
Although we could download the program as an install .exe file, I preferred to get the zip file and just sync it (I find it easier myself) . As expected from a USBMIS product , the program sync smoothly , generating no conflicts with other products I had on my palm.
The size of the entire program is about 1.6 megs. Its quite a lot for some small memory devices, however the smart guys at USBMIS have added full VFS compatibility so I could run the entire program from the SD card without absolutely any problems or noticeable performance drops. Talking about performance, the program loads fast, each disease topics display almost instantaneously after selecting it, and already known features such as bookmark and notes are saved so blazingly fast you don’t even notice.
Well, now lets go take a look at the program itself. For this matter, I decided to give the program a practical use. Coincidentally, my sister in laws ´maid asked me about a skin condition she was having so I decided to put the program to test. She told me that for about a week, she was having pain and itching on her hands which was worst after washing the clothes with a certain brand of detergent. At physical examination, I could appreciate some erythema and papules on her hands. So I grabbed my palm and loaded SkinDx.
Here I will present my first gripe (of only two) about the program. It’s a cosmetic one though. At launching the program you are presented with the following screen:
What is wrong with that you could say? , notice the big white rectangle in the lower screen?. Well although the rest of the program is fully optimized for 320×480 , this welcome screen is certainly not. I hope they can fix it. Its not a big issue though, but personally I didn’t like it.
If u click on disease name, it will just take you to the disease list. But that’s not where we are heading to.
So I clicked on disease criteria, and started adding the symptoms and signs collected from my new patient , as seen of the following screen:
On a side note, when you are adding these info, there is an option named “description”, which you can use in order to get info about that particular dermatologic sign, lets say ,in my case , “papule” :
This is really a neat feature , since many of us who are not dermatologists , occasionally forget what is the size of a lesion to be called papule or nodule , or simply we just want more info about a particular sign. Kudos to that , USBMIS!
So I clicked on search, and the program displayed me its list of potential differential diagnosis. Gladly for me, what I was thinking (“contact dermatitis”) was displayed, so that gave me more confidence in order to write my prescription.
Also I found the info on that particular topic to be concise, uptodate and , most importantly , useful. I can also extend this statement to several topics I had the chance to read, so I will generalize that the quality of the info in the rest of the topics I couldn’t is about the same.
After this little test, you can say : “Hey Eder , even my granny can diagnose that”. Well I agree, its not that hard. But having been the coordinator of a tropical course in the last month, I also took the opportunity and started putting the signs and symptoms of some patients which were presented for the rounds with tropical-dermatological conditions.
Great was my surprise when diseases such as scabies, cutaneous anthrax , and even cutaneous Leishmaniasis showed up each as a differential diagnosis (and sometimes as the sole one) on the respective patient. That really impressed me and I think that this intelligent database is indeed unique as nothing we have seen before.
And well, what is left of the review is my second gripe about the program; and it’s the lack of pictures. I know the program is targeted at being a diagnostic aid (and believe me it succeeds at that), but it could have been nicer if we had a photo in order to compare the disease we are facing or simply just to know how it looks like. I know it would add size and cost, but in the evergrowing field of medicine, personally I think money is not an issue when it comes to make a certain diagnosis in our patients.
Verdict: Another quality program by USBMIS. Size, stability and performance are excellent, as it is usual with their products. It succeeds as a diagnostic aid , as well as a reference (although the addition of photos would have made the program even nicer) , and after having tried some “pseudo-intelligent databases” before , I can gladly say this one blows all of them away and I hope it becomes a mainstay for future PDA medical programs. At just $ 29.95 (introductory price), this one is, in a few words, a winner.
Disclosure: This review is an independent one and not sponsored or paid for by any party including USBMIS.
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About the author, Eder: Eder Olortegui hails from South America and finished medical internship in 2007. A huge fan of palms (former owner of a T3 , now a proud owner of a Tx+ 4gb SD + universal keyboard) and especially palm medical related info. |
I had an unpleasant experience with USBMIS after purchasing 2 of their programs for my blackberry. They have no telephone number (nor will they provide one) to contact their customer service representative, do not provide a 30-day money back refund, and are rude.
I agree telephone support would be good though that’s so 20th century. Perhaps live tech support (chat box) would be an alternative USBMIS should consider. In what way were they allegedly “rude”?