Pepid or Nursing Central for nursing school

11nick · Nov 25, 2013

I have Nursing Central. I'm currently in my last class of an Associates program, and only bought NC when I was in this last class. Boy! Do I wish I had it from the beginning! I'm not going to say anything about the other app that you mentioned, as I know nothing about it. Another guy in my class has had NC since the beginning. You can download it to your phone, and you can also access it from any computer, too. I've used his NC password a couple of times on different projects, but never really got a feel for how useful it was. Now that I have it, I use it multiple times per day.

It is useful for me in a couple of ways. Obviously, it is a reference for meds, disease processes, etc. You have the ability to look up articles on it, too, although I've never used that function. The biggest help for me in school, though, is doing paperwork. In our Associates program, we have to do a "card" for each patient that we have. The card is a summary of the main disease processes that the patient is dealing with. Description, pathophys, manifestations, teaching, labs, psychosocial ramifications, tests, and on and on. NC lays all this out in the exact same format with exact same heading as our cards. I'm essentially able to cut/paste the info. If I have a new disease process, I do take the time to study/understand the process, but after a 2 year program, you see so many of them over and over again. I'm sure this probably isn't as helpful for you, as I'm guessing you may not have the same paperwork due that we do.... and if you do, it may be laid out differently.

Regardless, NC is pricey. Your initial payment is good for only a year. After that time, the app on your phone continues to work, but you don't get updates. For a student, this probably isn't a big deal as 99.999% of the info will remain the same over that year. You will, however lose the ability to log on via computer if you don't renew after your first year subscription is up.

At this point, I see me renewing after my year is up. I use it at the hospital frequently when I am at clinical. I can see me continuing to use it when I go to work after school.

Good luck!

ktdid23 · Nov 26, 2013

Personally, I love PEPID.

First of all, they have a nursing suite that is specifically for nursing students. I find this pretty cool since the information is formatted for use in the classroom and the information is really easy to navigate. All of their content is also linked to outside references (which is really helpful when putting together research papers, etc.)

Here are some other things to note:

1. They are constantly updating their content. Every three or four months I get an email telling me that a new update is available, so I always know that the content is current.

2. You don’t need internet access to access PEPID. You only need internet when you are actually installing the app or updating your app. Once it’s downloaded onto your phone, you can access the content anywhere, even places where internet is limited.

3. Dosing calculators. PEPID has hundreds of these.

4. Drug to drug interactions generator (I am really enjoying playing around with this!)

5. Pill identification. You can input the shape of a pill, color, score, etc and the database will match pills that resemble the description. (I’m also really enjoying playing around with this one too!)

6. Symptom checker

7. Lots of illustrations

If you wanted more information, I found this article that Scrubs Magazine wrote a few months ago about the different PEPID nursing apps: Apps for nurses: PEPID | Scrubs – The Leading Lifestyle Nursing Magazine Featuring Inspirational and Informational Nursing Articles

If you’re still not sure which one is right for you, I know PEPID offers a free trial: PEPID Free Trial

I’m not sure if Nursing Central does free trials because I couldn’t find a link on their site. But then again, I might not have been looking in the right place…

Hope this helps! Best of luck in finding a nursing reference that works for you!