Recently I started working on porting an old Android widget called MorbidMeter to the Apple Watch. I did this the cheapest way possible, namely via testing using the Apple Watch simulator that comes with Xcode, the Apple programming environment. When I submitted the app to the Apple Store for testing, the Apple Overlords immediately detected… Continue reading The Apple Watch Experience
Category: Computers & Software
Hacking the QTc
The QT interval—a measure of the duration of the overlapping action potentials from two billion ventricular muscle cells—has fascinated physiologists since the dawn of electocardiography. Too long or too short, it can be a harbinger of ventricular arrhythmias and sudden death. Sensitive to electrolytes, drugs, and autonomic tone, susceptible to congenital ionic channel mutations, difficult to… Continue reading Hacking the QTc
The Smartphone is an Essential Medical Instrument
The storage capacity of the human mind is amazing. One estimate of the size of the brain’s “RAM” is as high as 2.5 petabytes (a million gigabytes). The number is based on the total number of neurons in the brain and the total number of possible connections per neuron. I suspect it is an overestimate,… Continue reading The Smartphone is an Essential Medical Instrument
Trying Out Vim Using Emacs Evil Mode
After using the text editor Emacs for over 20 years, and after listening to debates on the merits of Emacs vs Vi/Vim (henceforth in this post referred to as simply “Vim”) for at least as many years, I decided that I wanted to give Vim a try. To be fair, I had used Vim before,… Continue reading Trying Out Vim Using Emacs Evil Mode
EHR Copy and Paste Considered Harmful
How bad are Electronic Health Record (EHR) programs? Let me count the ways. Rather, let me not, as I and many other folks have already done so. Even non-tech savvy doctors (of which there are fewer and fewer) realize something is wrong when they compare their experience using an EHR with virtually every other computer… Continue reading EHR Copy and Paste Considered Harmful
CenturyLink Sucks, Part 57
I don’t usually work at a coffee shop, but here I am, at Panera’s dealing with their bad (also CenturyLink) internet service, because my internet service is down at home. Yes we are going into DAY NUMBER 4 of the great CenturyLink Internet Service Outage of Parker, Colorado. This started inauspiciously, perhaps coincidentally, during a… Continue reading CenturyLink Sucks, Part 57
EP Studios App Updates
Here’s what’s going on with the EP Studios apps: EP Calipers Most of the new stuff is in EP Calipers. Probably the most useful new feature is available on the Mac and Windows versions: a transparent floating caliper window. Use it to overlay calipers over any open window on the desktop. Check figures of journal… Continue reading EP Studios App Updates
A Tale of Two Histories
Compare the following two versions of the same medical history: Version 1 CC: chest pain Mr. Smith is a 57 y/o white man who comes into the office today for the first time with a complaint of chest pain. He states he has been in generally good health in the past, though he has smoked… Continue reading A Tale of Two Histories
Escape from Escape
During my college days computers were run from teletype machines. These teletypes had a typewriter keyboard layout extended with unfamiliar keys like Control (Ctrl) and Escape (Esc). You could press Ctrl-G and make the teletype ring its bell — ding! You could press Esc when you mistakenly wrote a BASIC program with an infinite loop and make the program… Continue reading Escape from Escape
Geeky Docs
I remember the disdain some of the EHR trainers had for their trainees back when our hospital system “went live” several years ago. Of course this disdain was tempered by their knowledge that if docs weren’t so computer illiterate, or the user interfaces of the EHR systems weren’t so awful, or if the EHR software… Continue reading Geeky Docs