With the endless advancements in technology these days, making use of the best nursing apps is a must!
As all nurses know, a full work schedule paired with the everyday physical demands of the job can take a toll.
Beat nurse stress by taking advantage of these apps.
We compiled a list of nursing apps to help at work AND home. Put your smartphone to use with apps that cover everything from scheduling breaks to meal planning.
Best Nursing Apps At Work
Stay on the cutting edge with these medical-based nursing apps. Whether it’s anatomy, symptoms or diagnoses, these apps will keep you on track.
1. Nursing Central
Work towards being more efficient with Nursing Central. This iOS app helps nurses and students streamline many tasks by providing detailed information on diseases, tests, drugs, and procedures.You can consult the database the moment a question arises. Just look at the information in the always-updating database:
- A list of 5,000 drugs
- A dictionary with 65,000+ entries,
- Hundreds of laboratory and diagnostic tests
- The latest disease information
They even have an exclusive study system called “Grasp” that allows you to search the entire PubMed database or study unfamiliar topics.
2. Pocket Doctor
Pocket Doctor is a medical health encyclopedia. With extensive medical content, A-Z listings of medical conditions, as well a diagnosis by body area, this app has it all.There is a BMI (Body Mass Indicator) calculator and “Doctor Q” with additional information on a condition or diagnosis. The features of this app are incredibly useful.Because this app was written specifically for mobile, it’s very user-friendly.
Android download | iOS download
3. Human Anatomy
This award-winning app is both beautiful and useful with over 3,800 three-dimensional images of human anatomy and structure. It’s great for learning anatomy as built-in quizzes will help you test your knowledge of bones and muscles.Used as a reference by healthcare professionals and in anatomy courses, this app includes all body systems, the comprehensive gross anatomy of the male and female (each model with 5,000+ structures), select microanatomy, encyclopedic definitions, disease descriptions, and pronunciations.
This is also one of the best nursing apps for students who are learning the human anatomy!
Android download | iOS download
4. Nurse’s Pocket Guide
This highly thorough app has many features. We especially love how each diagnosis listing includes a definition, related factors, defining characteristics, prioritized actions/interventions, and so much more.According to the app store, features of Nurse’s Pocket Guide include:
- 440 medical conditions with associated nursing diagnoses
- Updated NANDA-I 2015-2017 diagnoses
- Defining characteristics presented subjectively and objectively
- Actions/Interventions organized by nursing priority
- Care plan guides
- Icons for cultural, collaborative, community/home care, diagnostic studies, pediatric/geriatric/lifespan, and medications
- NIC and NOC labels for each diagnosis
- Universal Index Search to find topics quickly
- “Favorites” for bookmarking important entries
Android download | iOS download
5. MedPage Today
MedPage Today puts breaking medical news, comprehensive reference information and free CME/CE credits at your fingertips, with daily coverage of over 30 specialties and annual coverage of over 60 meetings and symposia.
NOTE: You must be registered with MedPage Today to use this app and take full advantage of its features.
Login with your existing MedPage Today account after downloading, or you can register for free in the app or at medpagetoday.com
Android download | iOS download
6. Diseases Dictionary
This medical disease handbook can act as a clinical advisor for diagnosis and can also be used to look up symptoms, diseases, and treatment.
This handy app contains detailed information about medical disorders and diseases making it another one of the best nursing apps for students.
You can even access the app completely offline, which is great if you get poor internet service in your workplace.
Android download | iOS download
Make the most of your workday with these apps focused on things like organization, shift scheduling and beating stress:
7. Nurse’s Aid
If you’re an Android user, this is a great app for you. This is a free “reminder app” designed to help nurses and other healthcare professionals minimize workload through organization.There are four main features:
- It helps to remind you of random tasks associated with patients.
- It is very user-friendly and offers plenty of customization features.
- A simple UX display helps you review all tasks set on the app with a quick glance.
- Setting a reminder is very easy, and the talking alarm feature allows for hands-free reminders.
8. Zip Schedules
Zip Schedules app offers an easy way for employees and managers to interact and communicate with each other remotely. This is especially useful for nursing shifts!This app puts the work schedule in your pocket. Here are a few ways it works:
- Receive a notification when a new schedule is published or an existing schedule is updated
- Request time-off
- Swapping shifts
- Edit availability
Features for Managers:
- View historical, current or future published schedules.
- Control alerts and notifications.
- Approve or deny availability, time off, shift offer or accept requests.
- Notify employees about their schedule.
- View all employee’s schedules and contact information.
Features for Employees:
- View work schedule anytime, anywhere.
- Request availability.
- Request partial day or all daytime off(s) and keep a track of the request.
- Flexibility to offer/swap shifts with other employees.
- View coworkers contact information depending upon their preference whether to share information or not.
- Send messages to coworkers.
Android download | iOS download
9. Prana Breathe
Because nurses are constantly taking care of others, you can forget to take care of yourself. Make the most of your short and infrequent breaks by using this app.Need to gather your thoughts? Quickly and safely relieve stress? This free app for convenient management of breathing exercises can help.Top App Features:
- Develop a resistance to stress, and physical endurance.
- Improve brain activity: memory, attention, concentration.
- Decrease the physical symptoms associated with stress such as headaches and tense muscles.
- Improves the quality of sleep.
Android download | iOS download
Best Nursing Apps At Home
While these may not technically be the best “nursing” apps, it’s a fact that we tend to take our work home with us in the form of mental or physical stress.
Finding a good work/life balance is possible, and the two apps below are a great place to start.
Let’s focus first on the mental toll of nursing.
Caring for patients and their families is emotional, period. Nurses are highly trained to handle emotional stress, but it’s only natural that difficult cases can affect you sometimes.
The key to reducing stress is practicing relaxation techniques.
Re-focus, re-energize and de-stress by welcoming meditation into your life. Millions of people use the app called Headspace, and it can really help those who have high-stress professions.
10. Headspace: Guided Meditation
Get the most out of your day with the Headspace app. Perform your best through the life-changing skills of meditation and mindfulness.Headspace teaches you the essentials of living a healthier, happier life. The app offers access to hundreds of meditations on everything from stress and anxiety to sleep and focus.You can use it to build healthier relationships with the people you love, find a place of calm and relaxation during meltdown moments and even use it to improve your fitness.
All you need to do is download the app and sign up. Then just sit back, relax and breathe.
Android download | iOS download
When it comes to the best nursing apps, our final recommendation is actually nutrition based!
Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day to eat balanced, timely meals.
In fact, making it to the cafeteria (or even a vending machine) is sometimes impossible!
Any nurse will tell you they’ve had more than a few shifts pass where they forgot to eat entirely.
Proper nutrition is the cornerstone to overall good health.
Planning your meals ahead will make your job easier in a couple ways:
- You’ll be able to quickly eat, even if you only have 3 minutes to scarf down a prepared healthy snack.
- Your body will have the nutrients necessary to pushing you through long, physically demanding shifts.
SEE MORE: 5 Awesome Tips for Beating the Physical Demands of Nursing
We love this app to simplify planning and shopping:
11. MealPlan
MealPlan is an easy, efficient way to plan meals and groceries. Use a simple interface to plan out meals plus, enjoy these cool features:
- Keep track of recipes and the groceries you use.
- Automatically generate a grocery list based on your meal plan.
- Save grocery lists for later use (think “Party” or “Camping”).
- Save a week’s planned meals as a template to reuse.
- Configure your own meals: Add snacks, or remove breakfast if you don’t want to plan it.
- The “Magic Wand” quickly plans out future weeks based on past choices (iPad only feature, for now).
- Add clickable links for easy access to online recipes or coupons.
- Dropbox sync for families with multiple devices and accounts.
- Use Siri for groceries: “Add Milk to my Grocery List”.
Android download | iOS download
Conclusion
Nursing is one of the toughest (and most rewarding) professions out there! Make your life easier with the right apps.
These are the 11 best nursing apps that cover everything from break scheduling to meal planning:
- Nursing Central
- Pocket Doctor
- Human Anatomy
- Nurse’s Pocket Guide
- MedPage Today
- Diseases Dictionary
- Nurse’s Aid
- Zip Schedules
- Prana Breathe
- Headspace: Guided Meditation
- MealPlan
Have you used any other nursing apps you love?
Share them with us in the comments below!
