PowerChart Touch vs AHA ACLS
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
PowerChart Touch
This app enables healthcare providers to manage patient workflows on mobile devices. It offers secure access to patient charts, scheduling, order placement, and prescription management, facilitating efficient care delivery both inside and outside the facility.
- Review schedule and patient lists
- Access patient charts and demographic information
- Manage notes, allergies, problems, and histories
- Review clinical results and radiology reports
- Place orders and prescribe/refill medications
- Secure remote EHR access
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PowerChart Touch for iPad® and iPhone® supports fast, easy, and smart workflows. PowerChart Touch allows a provider to complete both ambulatory and inpatient workflows, including: • Review their schedule, patient list, and patient charts • Access the Physician Handoff, a standardized approach to transfer care of a patient between providers • Review patient's demographic information • Take patient's photo • Review, create, and sign notes • Review, add, and modify allergies, problems & histories • Review clinical results, radiology reports, and pathology reports • Review all orders including medication orders • Ability to place orders • Prescribe and refill medications with formulary support, electronic prescribing and printing • Clinical checking for safe prescription writing including drug-drug and drug-allergy checking • Dictate with Nuance voice recognition PowerChart Touch also provides secure access for providers needing access to the EHR outside of the facility's walls. IMPORTANT: PowerChart Touch requires your organization to have a valid license and be on release 2012.01 or higher. If you are unsure about the availability of PowerChart Touch at your organization, please contact your IT department or your Cerner representative.
AHA ACLS
This app provides clinicians with a digital tool to assist in running cardiac arrest codes and delivering advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) at the bedside. It features the latest AHA recommendations and includes intuitive access to algorithms, drug dosing, and timers for efficient patient care.
- 4 ACLS algorithms (cardiac arrest, tachycardia, bradycardia, post-arrest)
- Latest 2025 AHA ACLS content
- Drug therapy and dosing
- Easy-to-read timers
- CPR and epinephrine logging
- Rapid transition to post-arrest care
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The AHA ACLS app is the American Heart Association's (AHA) officially endorsed digital health solution to assist clinicians in running codes and delivering bedside ACLS care with actual patients. The app was developed by Harvard-trained physicians, in collaboration with the AHA, to help fellow physicians, nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and EMTs deliver the highest level of advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) at the point-of-care. It began as a project to assist clinicians within Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital—and then expanded to have a global scope after significant positive impact was demonstrated. Importantly, real-time feedback from our clinician users continuously drives improvements in app design, features, and function so that you will have the best experience providing life-saving care at the bedside. The AHA ACLS app is the only one to have all content vetted by both the AHA science team and practicing Harvard-affiliated physicians. It also features the latest 2025 release of AHA recommendations for ACLS. We owe it to our patients to use the best digital health tools to give them the highest chance of surviving acute life-threatening cardiac illnesses. To this end, we have developed a low cost, intuitive, and rigorously vetted mobile app to assist clinicians— including in all stages of training—and enhance ACLS care at the bedside. Features: - Intuitive design to rapidly access 4 ACLS algorithms (i.e. cardiac arrest, tachycardia with pulse, bradycardia with pulse, and post cardiac arrest care) - Includes all recently released 2025 ACLS content including drug therapy and dosing, reversible causes, etc. - Easy-to-read timers and ability to log rounds of CPR, epinephrine, and defibrillations - Button within cardiac arrest algorithm that allows for rapid transition to post cardiac arrest care pathway once patient achieves ROSC - All content rigorously vetted by AHA science team and practicing Harvard-affiliated physicians 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. AHA ACLS offers an auto-renewing annual subscription at $3.99/year with a 3-day free trial. You will have unlimited access to all content while you maintain an active subscription. Payment will be charged to the credit card connected to your Apple ID Account when you confirm the initial subscription purchase. Subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current subscription period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period. You may manage your subscription and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to your Account Settings after the purchase. Any unused portion of the free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when you purchase a subscription. You can read more about our terms and conditions in the app.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: AHA ACLS at 4.9 against PowerChart Touch's 2.2. AHA ACLS also leads on review sentiment (26% vs 9%) and chart position (#52 vs unranked). PowerChart Touch's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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 ACLS sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $3.99 per year. PowerChart Touch asks for nothing beyond the download.
AHA ACLS holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 2.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 207 and 277 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 9% of PowerChart Touch's written reviews are positive against 26% of AHA ACLS's.
PowerChart Touch ships an update every 6 weeks, AHA ACLS every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | PowerChart Touch | AHA ACLS |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.2 (207 ratings) | 4.9 (277 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 8.6% of reviews | 26.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 207 | 277 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Subscription |
| Best chart rank | — | #52 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.4 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 40 MB | 48 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Cerner Corporation | Massachusetts General Hospital |
Customer experience
PowerChart Touch
AHA ACLS
User reviews
PowerChart Touch
From 207 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great functionality
- 🚀 Efficient workflows
- 👍 Ability to order
- 👍 Increased efficiency
- 👍 Crucial for patient success
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashing often
- 🐛 Always asking to sign in
- 🐛 Very difficult to sign in
- 🐛 Getting worse
- 🐛 Pain in the neck
AHA ACLS
From 277 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- ✅ Accurate, up-to-date AHA ACLS algorithms
- ⏱️ Built-in timers and counters for code management
- 👍 User-friendly, intuitive interface
- 🏥 Trusted by Harvard/MGH and American Heart Association
- 📋 Helpful for documentation and PCR completion
Room to improve
- 💰 Subscription paywall on previously free app
- 🚨 Dangerous surprise paywall during active codes
- ⚠️ No warning before transition to paid model
- 🔐 Requires payment even for basic ACLS information
- 😤 Perceived greed from wealthy organizations (MGH/AHA)
Bugs and requests
PowerChart Touch
Reported bugs
167 issues- Crashes often
- Always asking to sign in
- Difficult to sign in
- Getting worse
- Pain in the neck
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- Clunky
- Difficult to document
- Not even functional
- Very poorly made
- Requires sign in twice
- Not letting me log in
- Absolutely terrible
- Crashes in the middle of notes
- Saves nothing
- Useless
- Embarrassing
- Not useful for surgeons
- Incomplete
- Repeatedly gives system error
- Freezes
- Horrible
- Confused about Bluetooth call
- Chews through battery
- Frustrating in car
- Missing micro view
- Limited ordering ability
- Can only cancel fluids
- Not faster overall
- Essentially useless
- Only works for some specialties
- No OB or prenatal
- Won't bring up pdfs
- Can't pull up lists
- Almost good
- Clunky
- No better than Instanote
- Cannot function as stand alone
- Sign-in again and again
- Freezes up completely
- Cannot even re-download
- Years behind Epic’s Haiku
- Pretty useless for inpatient
- Terrible app
- Avoid if you can
- Login/logoff five times
- Infrequent Dragon integration
- Zero consistency
- Terrible product technical support
- Frequent unexplained downtime
- Surprise updates render unusable
- Horrible idea
- Cutting out crucial functionality
- Always freezes up
- Need to restart phone
- Freezes many times
- Requiring phone restart
- Crashes all the time
- Biggest problem Cerner’s emr has
- Inability to understand other languages
- Will not let me into the app
- Drains my battery
- Keeps crashing
- No tracking board views
- No micro results
- No image viewing
- Horrible user interface
- Lacks basic features
- Ordering medications missing
- Glaring feature disparities
- Long-standing deficiencies
- Slow to fix issues
- Unhelpful
- Very stressful
- Worse than old version
- Adds to stress
- Wastes time
- Freezing nonstop
- Constantly reinstall/restart
- Miserable
- Frequent shut downs
- Microphones not working
- Slow to upload
- Fundamentally lousy
- Stalls out
- Requires delete/reload
- Upgrade doesn’t work
- Frozen, won’t start
- Days longer playing with app
- Updated now not working
- Loop of log in/log out
- Loss of Physician Handoff
- Less intuitive UI
- Requires more steps to login
- Buggy
- Slow
- Almost useless
- Poor upgrade
- Even more disappointing than desktop
- Not intuitive
- Needs to cater better for Australian sites
- No way to create patient list
- Schedule viewing: open slots
- Last update broke app
- Errors with processing orders
- Unusable
- Missing ability to add providers
- App does not open
- Third rate app
- Clicks don’t work
- Power plans ill conceived
- Throw your phone in agony
- Improvement falls short
- Poor execution
- Archaic
- Horrific update
- Deleted ability to lookup schedules
- Utterly ridiculous
- Major stability issues
- Lost work
- Crashes at least once every note
- Search removed
- Cannot find patient
- Won’t let me sign in
- Disaster
- No customer service response
- Loss of flowsheets
- Viewing current labs first
- Clutter of old labs
- Placing orders slower
- Verification of patient physician relationship slow
- Microbiology not available
- Charge after discharge not accessible
- Medication history dosing not available
- Please fix the dictation
- Does not support new iPhones
- Observation Status Patients do not Show
- New update has issues
- Becoming more useful, still slow
- Slow loading speeds
- Pretty useless
- No microbiology
- Clunky
- Poor UI
- Rounding with this is limited
- Not intuitive to place/edit orders
- Slow migrating between patients/lists
- Discharged patients disappear
- Need MAR tab
- Domon face recognition
- No reason for re-login
- Unable to dictate certain histories
- Practically worthless
- Getting worse
- Logs out after 10 minutes
- Lab results display useless
- Goes back to patient homepage
- Still on previous day
- Clunky
- Unnecessary haptic steps
- Real estate taken by useless options
- Old version preferred
- Lost trend review for data
- Vitals not in trend view
- Labs not in trend view
- Data not timely/accurately updated
- Trending capabilities absent
- Dictation not used anymore
Requested features
31 requests- Add ability to add media from photo gallery/files
- Add medicine reconciliation capacity
- Add ability to open radiographs and images
- Include microbiology section
- Show Operating Lists
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- Show blood gas values
- Add Micro view
- Increased ordering ability (fluids, power plans)
- Make app faster
- Add OB or prenatal functionality
- Bring up PDFs
- Pull up lists from care teams
- Add lab notifications
- Add secure chat
- Add PowerPlans functionality
- Add ability to add providers in ‘Resource Selection’
- Bring back old functionality for provider schedules
- Ability to create patient lists
- Show available slots on schedule
- View other schedules
- Support new iPhones borders and screen
- Show Observation Status Patients
- Add Subjective, ROS, Assessment for dictation
- Improve slow loading speeds
- Allow viewing discharged patients
- Add MAR tab
- Add thumb/face recognition for login
- Dictate social history, family history, past medical history
- Restore trending graphs and detailed views of vitals and labs
- Add dark mode option
- Advanced analytics dashboard
AHA ACLS
Reported bugs
3 issues- App fails to load information despite subscription payment
- Users locked out of app mid-code
- Unexpected app crashes during critical moments
Requested features
10 requests- Multiple log storage with dates
- More detailed code logging with event documentation (IO access, medications, rhythms)
- End code button and pause compressions feature
- Real-time log tracking for back-charting
- LVAD algorithm inclusion
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- Additional medication counters (bicarbonate, calcium)
- One-time purchase option instead of subscription
- Free basic version with premium features behind paywall
- Voluntary donation model instead of mandatory subscription
- Actual time reflection in logs for accurate timekeeping
In-app purchases
PowerChart Touch
No in-app purchases
AHA ACLS
- ACLS Pro3 Days trial$3.991 Year







