Statistics from the 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet (link here) show that the prevalence of diabetes in the U.S. is 8.3% or 25.8 million people. In 2007, the total cost of diagnosed diabetes in the U.S. alone reached $174 billion. It is clear that diabetes is a major healthcare issue in modern medicine. On the basis of this, it is important that healthcare professionals are well informed about diabetes and its potential complications as it will have a significant impact on future practice.

Johns Hopkins and Skyscape have teamed up to offer the POC-IT Guide to Diabetes for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, part of a series of apps that also include HIV and antibiotic guides. The app itself is free, but to use the guides requires a paid subscription to the online Johns Hopkins Guides service, which iMedicalApps reports as “usually $39.95.”

“The Diabetes Guide is designed to assist clinicians by distilling complex material into need-to-know information, easily accessible for rapid viewing and which can be frequently updated” (from the review). The information resides on your mobile device, so it is available whether or not you have an Internet connection. The iMedicalApps review goes into great detail about the features of this app, concluding that The Diabetes Guide is a “complete, easy to use mobile application that covers the majority of the clinical aspects and associated complications in great depth.”

Do you have access to this app? If so, how useful and user-friendly do you find it?