By Iltifat Husain, MD/MPH student, MS IV and Yousif Alkadhi, MD, PGY1
One of the toughest aspects of medicine is communicating medical conditions and procedures to patients who have limited medical knowledge through the use of only words. With clinic times becoming shortened, this communication is often under strain. The new 2.0 version of the Blausen Human Atlas application aims to help providers with this type of communication. This app allows medical professionals access to a vast library of 3D video animations and images that aid in explaining medical conditions to laypersons.
The Blausen Human Atlas, made by Blausen Medical Communications, and available in the App Store for $19.99, has been in the AppStore for a few months, but the new 2.0 version is a big update. In their description of the Human Atlas in the App Store they state that the recently released 2.0 version includes 150 3D animations, a medical glossary with over 1,500 terms, 1,200 detailed still images, 360 degree rotatable 3D human figures, and the ability to purchase additional smaller atlases. Of note, this is not a stand alone application and an Internet connection is required in order to access the medical glossary, images, and videos. In the following review, we’ll go over a brief summary of how the app works and how applicable it is to healthcare settings using our own experiences with the application over the past few days.
The Human Atlas app has three basic features you can use for navigation: 3D human figure, medical glossary, and videos. These navigation pathways can be seen once the human atlas is selected.
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August 13th, 2009 at 5:24 am
[...] Notes from the Clinic: Blausen Human Atlas App [...]
August 13th, 2009 at 5:25 am
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August 13th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Thank you for your positive review of our recently released Blausen Human Atlas 2.0 iPhone app.
As founder and CEO of Blausen Group, I have set our mission as alleviating the fears and concerns of patients world-wide. We have achieved success with our web-based Human Atlas 3D animations, and now with the new iPhone app. The goal is to find the best solution for both the patient and the caregiver.
Your comments are accurate and I want to address them with the intent of alerting you and your readers of our efforts to deliver the best user experience possible.
The app does require a high speed internet connection, either dedicated or wi-fi. Near term, caching will remain, but we are reviewing the possibility of downloading them and saving them directly to the phone. Simple storage problem.
The difference in resolution when zooming in on areas of the Human Body Figure versus comparable individual still images is due to the rotation of the figure. If the resolution was too high the figure would not rotate smoothly. We thought your idea of going first to the individual glossary term and related individual image, and then putting it in perspective within the body figure was a good one.
In the next couple months, the app will be available in 12 different languages. Spanish is scheduled to be the first.
The option to buy more detailed individual atlases will be activated and functional within the next several weeks.
Bookmarking or playlist functionality is under consideration and may be available in a subsequent version.
Again, thank you for your very positive review. We will continue to listen to our reviewers in order to create the best possible patient education tool.
Please follow us on Twitter @blausengroup and Facebook for updates on coming Human Atlas 2.0 additions and enhancements.
Bruce Blausen
Founder & CEO
Blausen Group
August 13th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Mr. Blausen, thanks for commenting on our review. We really enjoyed using your application. Our colleagues and patients continue to be impressed with the videos and images and their application towards patient education. I was also wondering if your group is thinking about applying your 3D animation capabilities towards medical instruction or education?
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:38 am
Mr. Blausen,
Is there any way to make the searchable glossary more searchable? For example, I searched for “otitis media” the other day trying to explain it to a parent in clinic, and got the “no related videos found” result, however later discovered if I just searched “otitis”, then a video titled “otitis media” shows up in the results. If I hadn’t sifted through the videos earlier and known it was there, I wouldn’t have been able to show it to these parents (which was really helpful by the way). Similar results occur for other searches as well. Is there something I’m doing wrong, or is there a fix to this coming soon?
September 14th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I’m a consumer who just purchased this app and found it very helpful to show my family images of the eye for which I have a condition recently diagnosed – however, I was disappointed to see that none of these images are stored on the device – they must be downloaded each time.
Given the spotty nature of AT&T 3G network – which is worse inside most any building (such as a clinic or hospital) I don’t understand how a physician could even use this application in those settings as they most likely would not even have a cellular signal in those settings.
The developer really needs to update their application to store all these images on the device locally – as all of the recently released navigation app currently do – I use the Navigon GPS app – it stores all of the USA and Canada maps on my phone – there is plenty of space – it uses 1.3 GB!!
Please update your app to include this – as well as the option to display labeling of the body parts – that would be very helpful.