Week 6 MediCalc Application Critical Appraisal.docx -...

MediCalc Application Critical Appraisal
Stephanie Moore
Chamberlain University
NR599-12919: Nursing Informatics for Advanced Practice
Dr. Flore Jesuca
June 14 th , 2020

Name
The name of the application that I will critically appraise is MediCalc.
Author
ScyMed Inc. is the company that created the application with the help of Board-certified
physicians in the United States. A. Arturo Rodriguez is the Editor-in-chief of the application. He
is also the founder, President, and CEO of ScyMed. He became interested in the application of
information technology to medicine and has developed many clinical software programs
(ScyMed, 2020). He is also still a practicing physician in Houston Texas and is pioneering new
software to help all medical providers.
Endorsement
MediCalc is not endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration or any other government
agency. No medical professional organization or academic institution has endorsed the
application, but the website states that the application was developed by Board-certified
physicians.
Operation
The application can be accessed by either platform, mobile or web-based. Both platforms
have its pros and cons. It is also functional in either platform, but may be more convenient to
access on the mobile platform. On the other hand, it offers a print feature which may be more
user friendly on the web-based platform especially if the provider practices at different facilities
around different printers. For these reasons, I would deduce that the platform a user chooses to
use is highly specific and individualized based on their needs.

Aesthetics
The information on the surface is easy to use and user-friendly. However, when you
actually click into the clinical formulas, equations, and algorithms, it is difficult to figure out
which number goes where and exactly what number it is seeking for a novice user. If you are not
familiar with the equation or formula, you will have to look at the directions to figure out what
information to compute where. On the other hand, the scales are straight-forward and easy to