As some of you are aware, the Apple App Store rejected an update to the EP Mobile app based on the presence of drug dose calculators in the app. The App Store guidelines state:
22.9 - Apps that calculate medicinal dosages must be submitted by the manufacturer of those medications or recognized institutions such as hospitals, insurance companies, and universities
For those who want more background on this issue, see these two previous posts (here and here).
I have decided to go ahead and remove the drug calculators from the app. All the drug calculator code remains in the app and, should Apple ever change their mind(s) on this policy, it will only require changing this single line of code to get them back.
// Sigh!
#define ALLOW_DRUG_CALCULATORS NOI toyed with putting a backdoor into the app to activate the drug calculators, but I realize if I do something like that it would be my last Apple app. I have modified the app to make up for the loss of the drug calculators, and I think that with these changes you will continue to be satisfied by the app.
Here are the changes.
The creatinine clearance calculator had been embedded in the drug calculators, so it has been promoted to its own discrete module (which is something I should have done anyway a long time ago.
drug calculators gone, creatinine clearance calculator added
Instead of the drug calculators, there is a drug reference section. Each of the drugs that formerly had calculators now has detailed dosing information, as well as other useful information, akin to what you find in the Medscape app. (An aside: I think drug dosage information as opposed to drug dose calculators is acceptable to Apple, as it is present in Medscape and other medical apps. Medscape does not meet the Apple criteria mentioned above any more than EP Studios does: it is not “the manufacturer of those medications or [a] recognized institution […] such as hospitals, insurance companies, and universities.”).
What makes the drug reference section more useful than the similar information in Medscape is that there is a toolbar at the bottom of the screen that allows you to calculate a creatinine clearance on the fly, and then retains that information while you are trying to figure out the appropriate drug dose. Thus the only calculation done is the creatinine clearance; the physician and not the app decides of the dose. In many ways this is superior than having a drug dose calculator, because more information is presented that may be useful to help decide on the proper dose. The drug reference section can also be expanded in the future to include information on other EP related drugs that don’t necessary require any calculations to dose, such as amiodarone or ibutilide.
Finally the D’Avila WPW algorithm has been added, as well as a module on diagnosing right ventricular hypertrophy. I have left in the Warfarin Clinic module too. This module was not called out by Apple on the last review, so we shall leave it alone for now.
I will submit the update to Apple in the next 24 hours. Their review process usually takes about a week. If the approve it, I will not release the update right away, but will give some advance notice on Twitter. If you really can’t live without the drug calculators, then you should turn off auto-update and not update the app. I think though that the drug reference section with the built-in creatinine clearance calculator more than makes up for the loss of the drug calculators, and I encourage you to update the app when it is available.
If you happen to be best buds with Tim Cook, let him know that rule 22.9 is stupid and should be sacked.
