Apple and IBM have released eight new apps

Apple’s partnership with IBM has given birth to eight new apps as part of MobileFirst, Apple’s mobile applications and services initiative. The apps serve a wide variety of markets with everything from healthcare, to retail, to transportation being covered. Healthcare is actually a new area for the two partners, with the new Hospital RN helping nurses access patient records quickly and easily using iBeacon technology. 

The apps revealed on Apple’s MobileFirst webpage today serve a wide market spectrum including travel and transportation, retail, insurance, and new areas like healthcare and industrial products. For healthcare professionals, Apple and IBM teamed up to create Hospital RN, an app that replaces pagers with iPhones to grant nurses access to patient records from anywhere in the hospital. The system uses iBeacon technology to automatically locate patients, while push notifications provide quick access to patient requests, lab status, safety alerts and more. Hospital Lead for iPad makes it easier for hospitals to manage floor nurses and staff. For example, nurses can organize tasks and assign team members through a centralized system, with task prioritization and status all handled in-app. The service also supports multiple internal databases, displaying them in a single unified view.