Web Buzz: Vitals app helps you find a doctor while traveling

This essential app saves you time and eliminates stress when searching for a doctor when you’re out of town and need one the most.

Name: Vitals

Available for: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad

What it does: Offers a database of more than 870,000 doctors with more than 200 specialties in the U.S. Save doctors you already like, and search for others from your current location or before your trip. Each doctor profile has a list of accepted insurance plans as well as phone contact info so you can click to call or link to Google Map directions.

Cost: Free.

What’s hot: You can set the app to show only doctors that accept your insurance, are board certified, and are a certain gender. Use the photo feature to keep a copy of your insurance card. Although keeping your own lists is valuable, I appreciated seeing patient reviews.

What’s not: It doesn’t have just one home page, it has three. It seems nitpicky, but I want a starting page, a home to return to so I can restart my search. But it doesn’t work like that. You can search for the top 10 doctors within a specialty, use the “Favorites” page or click over to the “Find and Rate” page to look for individual doctors.

Worth it: There’s no excuse not to keep your doctors’ information at your fingertips. Spend three minutes now to save yourself a stress headache later.