Windows Phone Thoughts: C-Tools 2.0 Under the Scope

Figure 6: The Drug Calculator.

The 'Drug Calculator' tool calculates 24-hour dosage equivalents (in milligrams) for any two drugs listed in the C-Tools database. While it's a nice tool to have, it's far from perfect in a real life situation, and any medico would agree that what's provided here should be taken with a grain of salt. Fortunately, ACS have provided a disclaimer which asserts the fact that the formulae used in the calculations should only be used as a rough guide. That minor rant aside, for basic functionality, the 'Drug Calculator' tool works great.


Figure 7: Emerging Technology - Lung Cancer.

The 'Emerging Technology' guide contains information on technology used for screening cancer. Often is the case that patients may ask a thing or two about what's available, so this guide can provide a decent breakdown of each procedure. The guide is broken down into three categories – breast cancer, colon cancer and lung cancer. The ones listed in the 'breast cancer' section details the current level of evidence and whether or not it has FDA approval for clinical use and/or screening. The others (i.e. the 'colon cancer' and 'lung cancer' screening technologies) generally have a few short paragraphs outlining the procedure, what it tests, and some other general information bearing relevance to the cancer of interest.


Figure 8: Pain/Symptom Management.

The 'Pain/Symptom Management' tool contains definitions and lists information to do with types of pain, categories of pain, the scope of the problem, effects of untreated pain, assessing pain, treating pain, treating side effects, treating specific pain sites, tolerance and physical dependence, adjuvant treatments, pain-related resources, and JCAHO standards. These are all broken down into sections, which in turn are broken down into selectable sub-sections. For example, if you look up the treatment of side effects, you have the option of selecting specific ones such as constipation, nausea, sedation, respiratory depression, itching and urinary retention. The great thing about this particular tool is it's straight to the point. Some medical resources often have an excess of information that's a pain to flip through. That is not the case with C-Tools. The information here is presented in a concise and readable manner.


Figure 9: A Pain Medications Database.

The 'Pain Medications' dictionary contains information on oral and parenteral analgesic doses of drugs ranging from Buprenorphine to Fentanyl. It lists the definitions of each drug as well as any clinically relevant interactions. That aside, the neatest feature has yet to be seen. By tapping Options in the command bar, you are able to add and delete medications as well as edit the comments of any drug listed. All this allows you to expand your drug database as well as remove any drugs you deem unnecessary to have in your guide. However, there is an annoyance to this feature as you will soon discover C-Tools' inability to backup any changes. If you decide to reinstall or delete the tool later down the track, any changes you have made to the 'Pain Medications' tool will be lost. If you ever have to hard reset your Pocket PC, you can see where this might be a problem, especially if you've added a wad of new medications to the list.