Somnus 12+

This app is ideal not only for registrar training logs, and just keeping an eye on your practice, but also for private billing since it now handles Medicare item numbers and generates a useful report with a cost estimate based on your own individualized unit rate. This can be sent to your billing company via a simple PDF generation step. There are also useful graphics indicating your practice makeup, type of Anaesthesia etc and you can use it to track any complications as well.

In a world where medical software seems to be written to make your clinical workload worse than ever, this app is a pleasant exception!

Thank you for the wonderful review!

Clearly designed by a practicing anaesthetist. Very user friendly. The main benefit for my use case, it halves my admin work. I was needing to make billing sheets for cases, as well as wanting to log my cases for personal audit, and in case of audit from other sources (such as Medicare). With this I can log my case, and it will generate a billing sheet for me to attach to my billing software. Not to mention a single purchase for BOTH iOS and Mac, no subscription rubbish or in app purchases, just fantastic. So impressed. Any thoughts of a charting app similar to OSAEMR? Or for a Windows port? Thank you for designing this.

Thank you for the great review, I really appreciate that you took the time to write it.

I had considered adding a charting component but I decided against. There are others doing great work in this space and I couldn't do half the job they're doing. It would also increase the complexity of Somnus dramatically and troubleshooting would be a lot of work (there are a lot of hardware I/O complexities which are well above my skillset). I fear I'd make a meal of it! There is the ability to add 'Clinical Photos' to cases, which I do sometimes use to attach a screenshot or photo of the clinical record, but I don't do it for every case as it's a lot of data. If you print a 'Case Report' rather than a 'Billing Report' these images will be included in the PDF.

As for Windows - I have no interest in this, for the same reasons I won't create an Android version - it's far too much extra work and the fragmented hardware ecosystem makes it difficult to maintain parity across devices, let alone platforms. I also am a pretty novice coder so I'd have to learn from scratch how to do it. That might make for a very ugly version of Somnus!

Developing in iOS is 'easy' in comparison. I know where I stand with hardware capabilities, users are almost always on the latest iOS (or macOS) so I can make use of new technologies all while knowing that data is safe and the user experience is consistent.

But thank you for the suggestions. I love the feedback and I'm always thinking of ways to make Somnus better - I use it every day for my private & public work which is where most of my ideas come from (usually when something annoys me!)

Paul

Intuitive interface, beautifully designed and intelligently executed, Somnus is the brainchild of an Australian anaesthetist.

I’ve been using digital anaesthetics logbooks for more than 10 years, and Somnus for the past 16 months. It is certainly the most user-friendly logbook for anaesthetics-related cases that I’ve come across in recent years. Somnus can also be modified with a number of user-defined fields & parameters, for example, to keep track of out-of-theatre cases such as aeromedical retrievals, ICU or ED cases, MRI or endoscopy suite cases.

The summary stats are very interesting to look back through, and the export function is perfect for providing a logbook summary to credentialing authorities when required. I have not needed to use the Medicare item number (billing) component so I can’t comment on its functionality.

Paul is also very responsive to suggestions for additional features or modifications, not to mention fixing bugs in a timely manner.

Thank you very much for the lovely review - this sort of feedback (and bug reports & suggestions) gives me a real boost and makes it all worthwhile!