The Palmdoc Chronicles

Sunday, November 30, 2003

Online Medical Reference
www.emedicine.com
Some of you might have came across this, but for those who hasn't, emedicine.com is a online medical resource that provides peered-reviewed updated information in various field of medicine. It can be comparable to uptodate.com in various way, and best of all, its FREE!
Medical Mnemonics
http://www.medicalmnemonics.com
My first post! =P Well, this website is mainly for medical students like myself. It features almost all the possible medical mneumonics you can think of! From Alzheimer's Disease to Felty's Syndrome, there's bound to be something that can help you remember. There is even a palmOS version, however, the program has not been updated for quite some time. The search function within the website is very thorough and includes various filters. Final word, it's good stuff!!

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

New Co-Bloggers
Have roped in a bunch of medical Palm users from KVPUG. Hope to see new blog contributions int the weeks to come! I have listed the new co-bloggers at the upper left panel of this page.
Welcome guys!
HaemOncRules 1.2



HaemOncRules has been updated. There are now 18 modules comprising algorithms to aid you in the diagnosis and management of various hemato-oncology problems. The latest addition is the CML Hasford (Euro) Score for patients on Interferon. HaemOncRules is freeware and I welcome suggestions for additional modules.

Monday, November 24, 2003

NEJM on your Palm

The New England Journal of Medicine PDA services is an attempt by the venerable NEJM to support PDAs. They have gone the way of iSilo document downloads which is somewhat tedious. You can download weekly summaries or individual issues (and that too in separate files for each article). I wish NEJM had gone the way of Highwire (see previous blog) and have some sort of journal delivery (of TOCs or even full text article) via the Hotsync process. They do support article search via PQA but not many of us use PQAs when we can have full fledged net and browser access. Perhaps a PDA friendly NEJM webpage would be an alternative...

Anyway the iSilo documents are pretty bare. No formatting. No images or tables. Lots of room for imprvoement here. If you can put up with it, at least you can read the article text in your PDA rather than carry it with you.
I would suggest an alternative way: login to your NEJM account, , Download (in Adobe format) and then print the article you want using Repligo - at least you get to keep the formatting and view images and tables.

Saturday, November 22, 2003

Highwire and your PDA

Upgraded to the T3 recently? Got more Ram to spare? Well I have and at last I can stuff more things into my PDA. One of my recent additions has been to add a free online subscription to Highwire's PDA channel service. Like ePocrates, Highwire's PDA viewer and data reside only in Ram and there is no VFS support. It's much like Avantgo, except these are Medical publications. I subscribed to the BMJ (mostly free fulltext) and JCO :


It's a little bare looking, not much colour and most B&W. But it's the substance we are after and not appearance isn't it? The viewer works well and there are hyperlinks to the detailed text sections. The menu is somewhat primitive but functional.


The viewer does not support the T3 in landscape mode unfortunately but I am happy to report that with Codediver, you can "force" it to appear in landscape mode. Here's a sample pic:






Wacky news item

A 'brain charger': The ultimate PDA accessory? | CNET News.com



South Korean start-up DreamFree claims Peeg, short for "personal electroencephalogram," is designed to stimulate different types of brain waves by sending positive waves to the wearer.

The Peeg consists of a software application for Microsoft Pocket PC, headphones and a set of silver eyeglasses that look like the sort of thing triathletes wear. The lenses are made of opaque plastic.

When the PDA application is set on "concentration," rhythmic pinging sounds are heard in the earphones while lights flash off and on inside the glasses. Users close their eyes, so they only faintly perceive the light pulses. The frequency of the pings and the lights are meant to be synchronized so that they induce brain waves of the same frequency. By altering brain wave frequencies, Peeg can "alter moods".

Does it work as claimed? It runs on PocketPeeSee, 'nuff said.

Friday, November 21, 2003

Appraising and Applying Evidence


FreewarePalm: Appraising and Applying Evidence v1.0 may be worth checking out if you are one of those who throughly read journals and recheck the stats. Unlike an Abstract, first and last paragraph reader like myself ;)

Features:

Has equations for diagnosis and includes Fagan nomogram.
Has equations for NNT including deriving the NNT from odds ratios and adjusting the NNT for transportation across prevalences.
Can perform Bayesian analyses of statistical significance.
Creates evidence tables from multiple studies and exports the tables to memopad.
Has epidemiology glossary with examples from classic studies.

Monday, November 17, 2003

Pulmonary Embolism Predictor

Michael Ward, class of 2006, Emory school of medicine somehow found time to write this little gem.
It's billed as such:
"This FREE program outlines the risk factors, signs & symptoms and criteria for low/intermediate/high clinical suspicion for Pulmonary Embolism. Finally, it provides algorithms for how to arrive at your final diagnosis based upon D-dimer assays, V/Q Scans and Pulmonary Angiography. The information contained in this program is based upon the article by Fedullo, PF et al. in the New England Journal of Medicine, 'The Evaluation of Suspected Pulmonary Embolism' 9/25/03."

You can download Pulomary Embolism Predictor from Memoware.com

Sunday, November 16, 2003

SIF daily fitness v1.0





FreewarePalm: SIF daily fitness v1.0 has been translated into English.
It is billed as "a complete and powerful guide to begin or improve the care for your physical form".
Worth a spin. It seems to be a Demo - could not alter the username. But appears to be free and no mention of an expiry date.

Saturday, November 15, 2003

225,000 Skyscape users

New Benchmark in Healthcare: More Than 225,000 Mobile Medical Professionals Rely on Skyscape for Critical Information On-the-Go.
"Skyscape, Inc., a leading provider of interactive, intelligent mobile solutions for the healthcare enterprise, today announced that more than 225,000 medical professionals at over 300 institutions--including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, physician assistants, residents and medical students, have registered to use Skyscape-powered software. This is a 100 percent growth in registered users in less than a year and as a result, Skyscape has the largest installed base of subscribers in the mobile healthcare information industry. "

Have you Skyscaped today?

Thursday, November 13, 2003

A trio of updated free Palm medical programs

First up is Journal Club by Timothy Allen is an excellent program which "calculates common statistics and defines common statistical terms''. Now updated to support OS5.

Tim also has updated My OB Wheel and ObSuite to support OS5. My OB Wheel allows the user to calculate EDC, gestational age, and to ask the question "When will the patient be x weeks?" . OB Suite includes a standard OB wheel, also calculates dates from US data. It allows the practitioner to calculate when a patient will reach a certain geatational age, tracks OB patients, tracks inpatients, tracks procedures, and calculates Bishop score.



Andrew Yee has also updated his Eponyms :
Update Description:
v1.70 (11/10/03):
- Added over 60 eponyms since 1.69
- Includes remember last category feature
- Support for Tungsten T3 screen

All excellent and highly recommended.

Monday, November 10, 2003

Contraction Timer

FreewarePalm: Contraction Timer v2.12 sounds like a good idea. I like the idea of a "finger input" as I can't imagine a woman having a strong contraction holding a stylus and tapping away!

Description:
Are you expecting a baby? Every pregnant woman and labor coach needs a copy of Contraction Timer! It takes the math away from labor.
Use the big buttons to keep a log of contractions, while Contraction Timer automatically calculates the most important information for your midwife or doctor: the frequency of the contractions and their duration. No stylus required! It's better than a stopwatch.
You can keep notes about the labor, too. When you're done you can save the log to the MemoPad for later editing and printing.
It also has an elapsed time counter for labor coaches! It even beeps and flashes when contractions come closer than 3 minutes apart.
After the birth, the note-taking feature lets you use Contraction Timer to keep track of breastfeeding times or diaper changes!

Congratulations to the author, Jude anthony, for a novel program.

Saturday, November 08, 2003

PDAs help to Establish New Door-to-Dilation Record

"Paramedic’s EKG Transmits to Cardiologist’s Handheld Computer; Heart Attack Patient Goes from Scene Straight to Cath Lab"

"Since June, area paramedics have carried special electrocardiogram (EKG) units capable of transferring digital information direct to a cardiologist’s handheld computer. While paramedics have used EKGs for years, transmissions were sent directly to the hospital emergency department (ED), where emergency physicians evaluated the EKG. If a heart attack was detected, aggressive treatment began upon patient arrival, generally before a cardiologist arrived. Now if the EKG shows a heart attack, paramedics transmit to the ED where personnel forward it directly to a staff cardiologist. The cardiologist receives a 12 lead EKG transmission, enabling the doctor to view all 12 leads of the EKG simultaneously or enlarge a specific lead for analysis."

Read this amazing news item at PDACortex

Alright. It's a PocketPC. I am so jealous.

Friday, November 07, 2003

Palm Boulevard: News: Skayscape Brings Elsevier Medical Titles to PDAs

Skyscape and Elsevier, a medical publisher, recently announced plans brings electronic "powered by Skyscape" versions of Elsevier's most popular medical and nursing references to Palm OS and Pocket PC devices.
The partnership with Skyscape expands access to Elsevier's portfolio of reference titles to hundreds of thousands of health professionals who use handheld. Mary Ging, an executive vice president at Elsevier, said "we are very pleased to offer our premium titles on the Skyscape platform as it provides an exciting new way for our customers to access our best medical reference titles."

Skyscape said it will introduce some of the most popular Elsevier references such as The Harriet Lane Handbook, The Osler Medical Handbook, Pocket Essentials of Clinical Medicine, Pain Management Secrets, Ferri's Clinical Advisor, and Mosby's Medical Drug Reference. Additional Elsevier references will regularly be made available over the next few years.


Thursday, November 06, 2003

What me worry?

The legs of the stork are long, the legs of the duck are short; you cannot make the legs of the stork short, neither can you make the legs of the duck long. Why worry? - Chwang Tsze

Why Worry is a free e-book by George Lincoln MD which you can download for free from Memoware.com. Its an old publication but glancing thru it, it makes a decent read. Available in Doc and TomeRaider format.

Sunday, November 02, 2003

Free programs to track Menstrual Cycles

Spotted a new one from PalmOpenSource:


Unicycle is a free, open source PalmOS app for recording a woman's BBT (basal body temperature) and certain other data that can be used for the "Fertility Awareness Method" (FAM). The current version is alpha: functional, but not perfect. Caveats: Unicycle intentionally does not make predictions from your data (that is up to you to do).

NFP for Palm OS is a free software program designed for Palm OS that allows a woman to track her fertility throughout a menstrual cycle using a set of simple daily measurements. NFP can be used either to avoid or achieve pregnancy. It can be an effective chemical-free method of contraception, or it can be an inexpensive method of conception.
ICUMath

ICUmath by Terry Fagan has been updated. Freeware.

Description:
52 adult ICU applications using 82 medical equations, pulmonary, cardiology, BNP nomogram, pharmacokinetic dosing, renal, electrolyte, chemistry, nutrition, TPN, perioperative risk, biostatistics, acls, apache II, unit conversions, rules of thumb.


Saturday, November 01, 2003

Palm Boulevard: News: Skyscape Brings Red Book to PDAs:


Mobile software provider Skyscape on Thursday announced that it will offer a PDA version of the Red Book, a leading pediatric reference guide.

Skyscape said it will work with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to translate the 26th Edition of the Red Book, including 100 images, to a handheld format.

The Red Book will be available on multiple platforms, including Palm OS, Windows CE and Pocket PC, for $99.95. Information on the Red Book for PDA will be available during the AAP National Conference and Exhibition, November 1-5, 2003, at the AAP Resource Center. Visitors to the AAP Resource Center will receive a flyer good for 15 percent off their Red Book purchase at www.skyscape.com.