AHA PALS vs STAT EM
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
AHA PALS
This app provides pediatric advanced life support (PALS) protocols and tools for healthcare professionals at the point-of-care. Developed by physicians and vetted by the American Heart Association, it offers intuitive access to algorithms, drug information, and timers for critical care situations.
- PALS pathways and algorithms
- Drug therapy and dosing
- CPR and intervention timers
- Metronome for compression accuracy
- Critical care references
- Vetted by AHA and physicians
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We continue to iterate based on real-time clinician feedback so that you will have the best experience providing life-saving care at the bedside. The AHA PALS app was developed by Harvard-trained physicians, in collaboration with the American Heart Association (AHA), to help fellow physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and emergency medical technicians (EMT) deliver the highest level of pediatric advanced life support (PALS) at the point-of-care. This project was inspired by the tremendous success of our AHA ACLS app, which has thousands of clinician users in over 180 countries. Importantly, real-time feedback from our clinician users continuously drives improvements in app design, features, and function. AHA PALS is the only app to have all content vetted by both the American Heart Association (AHA) science team (with license to use PALS content) and practicing Harvard-affiliated physicians. We owe it to our patients to use the best digital health tools to give them the highest chance of surviving acute life-threatening illnesses. To this end, we have developed an intuitive and rigorously vetted mobile app to assist healthcare clinicians—at any stage of training—navigate PALS at the bedside. You can purchase a yearly subscription which begins with a 3-day free trial. After completing the free trial, you will be charged for an annual subscription automatically. Features: - Intuitive design to rapidly access PALS pathways (i.e. cardiac arrest , tachycardia with pulse, bradycardia with pulse, post cardiac arrest care, and critical care references) - Includes all PALS content including drug therapy and dosing, reversible causes, etc. - Easy-to-read timers and ability to log rounds of CPR, epinephrine, and defibrillations. There are additional functionalities to log PALS Cardiac Arrest interventions beyond EPI, CPR , and shocks such as lidocaine and more. - We also added a new metronome feature to improve compression accuracy as well as a ROSC button. - Button within cardiac arrest algorithm that allows for rapid transition to post cardiac arrest care checklist once patient achieves ROSC - Relevant critical care references: (1) drugs used in PALS (i.e., medication names, indications, and doses); (2) vital signs in children; (3) pediatric color-coded length-based resuscitation tape (adapted from Breslow tape) ; (4) pediatric Glasgow Coma Scale - All content rigorously vetted by AHA science team and practicing Harvard-affiliated physicians - Regularly updated with the most up-to-date PALS content
STAT EM
This medical app provides medication calculations for patients from neonates to adults, featuring updated evidence-based algorithms and emergency medication dosing. It includes pediatric oral antibiotic guidelines, neonatal resuscitation management, and an augmented reality feature for weight estimation. Future updates will allow users to save favorite content.
- Medication calculations (neonates to adults)
- Pediatric oral antibiotic guidelines
- Updated evidence-based algorithms
- Neonatal resuscitation management
- Adult emergency medication calculations
- AR weight estimation feature
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We’re excited to offer STAT EM, an enhanced version of Pedi STAT, providing medication calculations for neonates to adults. To keep giving you the most up to date content, we’ve moved to a subscription model to keep our app free of advertising. This new version contains pediatric oral antibiotic guidelines and dosing, updated evidence-based algorithms, and neonatal resuscitation management. It also includes adult emergency medication calculations including both weight-based and fixed dosing volumes. We’ve added an AR feature allowing you to use your device to measure the length of child to assist in weight estimations. Finally, you will soon have the ability to save favorites to assist you in finding the content you use most frequently. Terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: STAT EM at 100% against AHA PALS's 55%. STAT EM also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.5). AHA PALS's advantage is ratings volume (47 vs 6) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. AHA PALS sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $3.99 per year and STAT EM sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
STAT EM holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: AHA PALS has 47 ratings behind it against 6, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 55% of AHA PALS's written reviews are positive against 100% of STAT EM's.
AHA PALS ships an update every 2 months, STAT EM every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 10, 2026 and September 22, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | AHA PALS | STAT EM |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (47 ratings) | 5.0 (6 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 54.5% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 47 — better | 6 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Subscription | Subscription |
| Best chart rank | #169 | #149 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 56 MB | 39 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Massachusetts General Hospital | James M Kempema MD PA |
Customer experience
AHA PALS
STAT EM
In-app purchases
AHA PALS
- PALS3 Days trial$3.991 Year
STAT EM
- STAT EM Monthly$0.991 Month
- STAT EM Annual$7.991 Year








