An ACEP mobile app that provides emergency physicians with quick toxicology information has been named one of the top medical apps of 2015.

The ACEP Toxicology Section’s Antidote app was named one of the best new apps for iPhone and Android by the physician editors at iMedicalApps. The app was deemed “fantastic,” providing easy access to important information.

And it’s available for free.

It couldn’t have come soon enough for Jennifer Hannum, MD, FACEP, assistant professor ofcemergency medicine and director of toxicology at Wake Forest Schoolcof Medicine in Winston-Salem,cNorth Carolina.

Dr. Hannum was chair of ACEP’s Toxicology Section and helped steer the app through to completion in February 2015. More than 50 volunteers worked on the project, and a section grant from ACEP provided funding for a developer to help create the app.

Each antidote summary was written and reviewed by section members, and the app does not require Internet access once it has been downloaded.

Dr. Hannum said the app was designed to help emergency physicians make important bedside decisions.

“In a fast-paced emergency department, it is important to have information readily available for use,” she said. “It is not meant to be an all-inclusive source, and it is not a substitute for consulting with the local poison center. However, I feel it is a nice resource built specifically for use in the emergency department.”

Dr. Hannum said the app might be helpful, for example, when a patient arrives at an emergency department acutely ill from calcium channel-blocker poisoning and a physician needs to determine what dose of calcium would be appropriate.

“You don’t see those cases very often,” she said. “You kind of need information pretty quickly.”

Instead of taking the time to go to a computer for research or to call a poison center, a physician can instead get the information quickly from the app.

“My goal was to create a user-friendly resource created by toxicologists that provides quick access to the indications and dosing of various antidotes that could be used in emergency medicine,” Dr. Hannum said. “The pitfall of many medical apps, and other resources for that matter, is that they are a bit cumbersome to use when you are in need of information quickly.

“The response has been positive from the thousands of people who have already used the app,” she said. “Folks seem to enjoy using the app. They like that it’s built for the emergency physician and for quick use.”