Clinical Anesthesiology from USBMIS

USBMIS has gone to great lengths to produce a well-informed, consistently organized, and user-friendly application for your PDA. Clinical Anesthesiology is a succinct overview of the basic concepts and clinical considerations in the anesthetic management of patients, and is a must-have for any anesthesiologist or trainee in this specialty.
Check out these valuable features:

* Updates to all chapters reflecting the latest advances in practice
* Case discussions demonstrate application of the contents
* Key Terms and Topics provide a quick guide to subject matter usually contained on written exams
* Tables and figures allow easy comprehension of complex material
* Key Concepts help you focus on truly important themes that constitute the core understanding of anesthesiology
* Comprehensive index facilitates quick searching
* Bookmarks personalize your application for the information you access most frequently

Epocrates Doctors Day offer

March 30 is Doctors Day (Happy Doctors Day!) and Epocrates is having a special offer:
Subscribe to ALL of their mobile products for just $75 AND receive a FREE subscription to Epocrates® Online Premium! That's a $209.98 value for just $75. Big discount!

Medical Texting

The Ectopic Brain blogs about Health Service Needs More SMS. Just yesterday a colleague of mine emailed me for help as he is experiencing issues with his Palm T5 and his t630 phone, being unable to retrieve SMSes from the phone. This just goes to show you how dependent we have become on SMSes. The telcos are very happy too for over here and I'm sure all over the world where "texting" is done, they are making $$$$$$$$$.
What I like about SMSes is that the messages are unobtrusive. They don't disturb you in the middle of a conversation or worse still in the middle of a procedure like a phone call. They are also usually cheaper then a voice call and the best part is the data is kept on your phone so you can retrieve the information later.
What I don't like is smtms d msg cn b cryptc n diff 2 undrstnd. No fear, you can always refer to SMS Dicitonaries if you are befuddled by the SMS shorthand.
I use it everyday and I am very impressed with the Treo650's SMS program as the "threaded conversation" display is very user friendly. I am trying to persuade my colleague to go convergence too and he won't have anymore problems with getting the correct phone drivers.
A sample message I sent yesterday:
Me2DrL: Got a patient Mr X in Rm 123 for a PICC. Can you help?
DrL2Me: Sure. Can put it in this afternoon
Later in the day DrL SMSed "PICC in successfully"

I do communicate with patients via SMS too and in fact if you don't want to be disturbed by phone calls from patients, you could insist they send SMSs only (cellphones are pretty ubiquitous these days anyway). You could use software for your Treo like Ringo or CallFilter to screen calls from individuals or contact groups (e.g. Patients) and divert the calls to a voice message which tells them to send an SMS instead!
There is a cheaper way to communicate via text with your smartphone but I'll leave that for another blogpost....

USBMIS Sale of the Week Extended

This USBMIS Sale of the Week has been extended till March 26.

New Skyscape releases

You might be interested in these new Skyscape releases:

Internal Medicine On Call, 4th Ed. Special Mobile/Desktop Bundle
A concise, portable reference that focuses on the evaluation and treatment of over 60 of the most common internal medicine on-call problems.

The Breastfeeding Answer Book - Pocket Guide Edition
Complete and up to date information for those who help mothers breastfeed.

The Harriet Lane Handbook, NEW 17th Ed.
The pediatrician's reference of choice for more than 50 years. Completely revised and updated with new interactive flowcharts and nearly 600 integrated weight-based dosing calculators, Skyscape's Harriet Lane Handbook sets a new standard as the essential decision support tool for anyone who treats children.

Handbook on Injectable Drugs, 13th Ed.
Written by Lawrence A. Trissel, ASHP's Handbook on Injectable Drugs is a dynamic new mobile tool that makes it quick and easy to check on the compatibility of drugs.

Emergency Medicine Manual, 6th Ed.
The best-selling pocket reference in emergency medicine covers step-by-step treatments, coverage of bioterrorism and more.

Food Pyramid 2.6

Food Pyramid 2.6 has been updated

Application Description This simple program is based on the USDA's food guide pyramid. It will remind you that what kinds of food you should eat everyday. You can sort the records by date and large notes field for input additional information. At the end of each day you can put in the daily rating that you think you should get and motivate yourself to do even better tomorrow.

Skyscape Achieves Major Milestone

Press Release

Skyscape Inc. Achieves Major Milestone Surpassing 500,000 Medical Professionals Using Its Mobile Point-Of-Care Solutions

MARLBOROUGH, MASS. – March 20, 2006 – Skyscape Inc., the firm that pioneered in-context integrated medical references, has achieved an important new milestone by surpassing 500,000 registered medical professionals using its library of mobile medical decision support tools.

A half-million nurses, physicians and allied health professionals are using Skyscape solutions on PDAs, smart phones, Tablet PCs and desktop PCs for fast and accurate diagnosis, treatment and prescribing support at the point-of-care, or wherever decision support is required, said Sandeep Shah, Skyscape founder and CEO.

“New medical evidence and other breaking information is released so rapidly that medical professionals and students must use the latest technology to stay on top of the daily wave of new information which is so critical to them and their patients,” Shah said.

While 1 in 2 physicians already use handhelds in their daily practice, Shah says their utilization – and the number of Skyscape users – will continue, driven by the growth of evidence-based medicine and electronic medical records – as well as increased wireless accessibility.

Recognizing the benefits, medical centers, such as Children’s Hospital Boston, and educational institutions, such as Vanderbilt University, are deploying or otherwise supporting the use of handheld medical decision support software by their doctors, nurses, students and instructors.

“Individual practitioners and institutions alike are realizing the benefits that Skyscape technology can bring in terms of reduced medical errors and better care,” Shah said.

A recent Skyscape survey of more than 2,800 medical professionals credited PDA-based
decision support tools with helping them to provide better and more efficient patient care. A majority cited handheld tools as “critical” to their daily practice and reported that the decision support and reference solutions enabled them to reduce potential medical errors, provide more medical care and assist more patients.

"Today, medical professionals can be literally 'up to the minute' with information delivered anywhere they need it," Shah said. “Handheld PDAs, smart phones and tablet PCs are an ideal use of technology for providing instant mobile access to general and specialty reference titles, clinical and drug-dosing calculators, ICD-9 coding, treatment guidelines and other decision support solutions – all updateable via a desktop or wireless Internet connection.”

Today, Skyscape offers more than 300 such decision support resources – the largest library available – covering over 30 medical specialties. Skyscape’s patented smARTlink™ technology provides interlinked clinical content between its portfolio titles as well as with leading mobile medical computing solutions such as MedAptus, MercuryMD and PatientKeeper. Skyscape products are available for Palm OS® and Windows® Mobile Pocket PC handheld PDAs and smart phones and Windows® desktop, laptops and Tablet PCs.
Skyscape Inc. is headquarted in Marlborough, Mass., and is on the Net at www.skyscape.com.

Patient management software update

My favorite patient management software for the Palm has been updated again.
What is it? Why, Iambic's Agendus Pro of course :)
I'll elaborate a little later on but I use Agendus extensively in my daily work and it works fine for me to keep track of my patients, patient and work related tasks and notes and of course my appointments.
Check out the new features

More medical schools requiring PDAs

In effort to improve care, more medical schools requiring PDAs (via Palmaddicts)

Brown recently joined a growing number of medical and nursing schools that require students to buy and use PDAs. Faculty and students say the technology saves time and helps them provide better care, in addition to reducing medical errors. Drug references and diagnostic programs can be stored on them, giving physicians information at their fingertips. "Let's face it, it's impossible to get all this stuff straight in your mind and memorize it," said Art Frazzano, associate dean of medicine at Brown. The University of Rhode Island College of Nursing also began requiring PDAs this year for some students. One goal is to teach students the value of up-to-date information in a field that is rapidly changing, assistant professor Laurie Lauzon Clabo said. "If we had students buy a book, by the time the book hits the bookstore, it's outdated," Lauzon Clabo said. "And with using PDAs, they can update their software weekly."

Well, these medical schools have got it right IMO. I have yet to see any of the medical schools where I live make PDAs compulsory. However I do know of many medical students here who use PDAs on their own accord. It may not be compulsory but once you use one, you wonder how you managed without one before.

Shortcut tip for your Palm

Miss using Shortcuts for your Treo650?

Well there is a freeware replacement called Shortcut5

Shortcut5 appears in your Preference Panel and you can set your definitions there.

For example I defined a shortcut for "admission"
Name:adm (note you don't put the "." when defining the name, only when you call up the shortcut)
Shortcut:
admission

So in Agendus when I am typing my meeting notes for a patient, I just enter
.adm
and the text automagically becomes "admission"

For the Datestamp and special system shortcuts there are some codes.
E.g. for the Datestamp, the shortcut I define
.ds as the shortcut for Datestamp
the Shortcut code is : @@ds

You can define long phrases and multiline text too if you like (e.g. simple templates)
For example I define a patient template
.pt

as

Diagnosis:
Referring:
Medication:
Follow-up:

and the above text will appear in the notes for me to fill in the blanks after the ":"

You can use Shortcuts wherever you need to enter text e.g. Memopad. It also works in Documents2Go.

Really powerful. And free

Memoleaf II

Back in 2004, I mentioned using Memoleaf as your "peripheral brain".
You might be interested to know that Memoleaf has recently been updated in Palmgear. Version 4.3 adds even more features and from version 4.2 onwards, the Treo's Dpad navigation is well supported.
So if you are keeping your clinical notes in a haphazard fashion in your Palm's Memo, get organized today! Get Memoleaf!

Pulmonary Functions and Vital Capacity Calculator

RPN CalcSeries Pulmonary Functions and Vital Capacity Calculator 1.0 has been released in Palmgear.
Application Description:
The pulmonary function and vital capacity calculator provides computations of the predicted and percent predicted values for:
• Vital Capacity (VC)
• Forced Expiratory Volume after 1 second (FEV1)
• Maximum Exploratory Flow Rate (MEFR)
• Maximum Ventilatory Volume after 12 seconds (MVV12)
• Residual Volume (RV)
• Total Lung Capacity (TLC)
• Functional Residual Capacity (FRC)
• Forced Expiratory Flow from 25% to 75% (FEF)
• on-line User Guide
• Hi-Resolution (320x480) support
• User-friendly interface
• RPN stack display
• 90 independent storage registers
• Upgrades / updates are life-time free of charge
• Many examples are provided to teach using the calculator
- Calculations are performed for either male or female patients, given the patient's height and age. Data inputs are patient's height (in either ,metric or English units) and age in years.
- This calculator also performs computations of body surface area (BSA) by either Dubois or Boyd formula, allowing your choice of the preferred method. If cardiac output (CO) is known, cardiac index (CI) may also be calculated. Data inputs are patient's height and weight, in either metric or English units, and if desired, the cardiac output.

USBMIS Sale of the Week

USBMIS Sale of the Week is on again:

Purchase Schwartz Principles of Surgery or Just the Facts in Emergency Medicine this week, March 13 – March 19, and save. Purchase both applications and save BIG!

Schwartz Principles of Surgery is one of the world's most well known references in general surgery. Just the Facts in Emergency Medicine is one of the most valuable and trusted PDA references available for this area of specialty. Now, and for a limited time only, purchase both valuable applications and save more.

* Save 10% - Schwartz Principles of Surgery.
* Save 10% - Just the Facts in Emergency Medicine.
* Save 20% Off Each - Buy Schwartz Principles of Surgery and Just the Facts in Emergency Medicine and save BIG.

For more details, visit www.usbmis.com

Handhelds in the health literature

Assessment of Clinical Tools
Bochicchio GV, Smit PA, Moore R, Bochicchio K, Auwaerter P, Johnson SB, Scalea T, Bartlett JG; POC-IT Group.
Pilot study of a web-based antibiotic decision management guide.
J Am Coll Surg. 2006 Mar;202(3):459-67. Epub 2006 Jan 19.
... Little is known about the impact of mobile medical information tools on physician learning or improvement in decision-making.

Handhelds in Patient Care & Management
Rudkin SE, Langdorf MI, Macias D, Oman JA, Kazzi AA.
Personal digital assistants change management more often than paper texts and foster patient confidence.
Eur J Emerg Med. 2006 Apr;13(2):92-6.
... Personal digital assistants are feasible in an academic emergency department and change management more often than texts. EMRs accessed personal digital assistants more often than paper texts. Patient perceptions of physicians who use personal digital assistants are neutral or favorable....

Kearney N, Kidd L, Miller M, Sage M, Khorrami J, McGee M, Cassidy J, Niven K, Gray P.
Utilising handheld computers to monitor and support patients receiving chemotherapy: results of a UK-based feasibility study.
Support Care Cancer. 2006 Mar 9; [Epub ahead of print]
... Recent changes in cancer service provision mean that many patients spend a limited time in hospital and therefore experience and must cope with and manage treatment-related side effects at home. Information technology can provide innovative solutions in promoting patient care through information provision, enhancing communication, monitoring treatment-related side effects and promoting self-care. ...

Hanauer DA, Wentzell K, Tovar A, Zeuhlke J, Kumar V, Laffel LM.
Parent and youth assessments of a handheld wireless device to enhance diabetes mellitus management.
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2006 Mar;160(3):321.
... Diabetes mellitus is a complex disease that requires both the patient and the family to focus on many medical management tasks such as checking blood glucose (BG) levels and administering insulin. Careful adherence to these tasks can often result in better outcomes.1 Several studies have shown that the use of emerging technologies by adolescents and youths can have a positive impact on diabetes care2 and reduce healthcare utilization without adversely affecting outcomes.3 It is becoming increasingly important to explore both interest in and usability of patient-centered implementations using new tools to determine how best to engage hard-to-reach populations such as youths, especially with the proliferation of wireless transmission technologies. ...

Jamison RN, Raymond SA, Slawsby EA, McHugo GJ, Baird JC.
Pain Assessment in Patients With Low Back Pain: Comparison of Weekly Recall and Momentary Electronic Data.
J Pain. 2006 Mar;7(3):192-199.
...Past research has shown that electronic diaries improve the timeliness of receipt of data, contribute to higher rates of compliance, and are preferred by patients over paper diaries, and this research suggests that electronic diaries that capture current pain at the moment of reporting result in more reliable ratings than recalled pain ratings. ...

Handhelds in World Health
Drury P.
The eHealth agenda for developing countries.
World Hosp Health Serv. 2005;41(4):38-40.
... developing countries can fully exploit the potential of handheld computers and wireless connectivity ...

--
MJ Stoddard

Advanced Nursing Fellowship Program uses Skyscape

Press release:

St. David’s Healthcare Partnership & Austin Community College Deploy Skyscape PDA-Based Medical References in Advanced Nursing Fellowship Program

AUSTIN, TEXAS and MARLBOROUGH, MASS. – March 13, 2006 – Armed with Skyscape medical references on their PDAs, nurses at St. David’s HealthCare Partnership in Austin, Texas, are delivering more efficient, effective, and timely care to patients. The Skyscape mobile medical references are supporting an advanced nursing fellowship program conducted by Austin Community College for the healthcare system.

Program consultant Dr. Susan Smith believes PDAs loaded with mobile medical references are transforming the nursing profession, helping to deliver more efficient and effective patient care.

The institutions received a $2 million U.S. Department of Labor grant as part of the Bush Administration's High Growth Job Training Initiative. About 70 registered nurses participate as fellows in the program, plus clinical coaches serve as expert resources to the fellows.

Under the program, in its second year, the funding is used for the purchase of 120 PDAs for the nurse participants and the clinical coaches.

The nurse participants and their coaches are given Dell PDAs pre-loaded with four popular Skyscape reference titles.

The students are provided instructions on the use of PDAs and how to access the pre-loaded Skyscape nursing reference software, but most participants taught themselves how to use the devices.

“Let’s say someone is questioning a medication, or there is a change in a patient’s
condition, or a laboratory result comes back that needs review, the nurse may need to do fast research before calling the physician to tell them what might be happening,” said Smith. “Our PDAs and their Skyscape medical references really facilitate a much quicker reaction time. Plus, it puts the information at the practitioner’s finger tips. The nurse can respond faster to the physician, or someone else, when using the PDA, instead of returning to the nursing station to reference a medical book,” she said.

Skyscape is the leading provider of medical references formatted specially for mobile
devices. The four Skyscape references purchased were very familiar to the students and covered a broad scope of nursing requirements. “Taber’s Medical Dictionary is a nationally known reference; Davis’ Drug Guide for Nurses and ABCs of Interpretive Laboratory Data are very popular; and RNFastFacts (Nurse’s Fast Facts: The Only Book You Need for Clinicals, 2nd edition) was used and recommended by another agency,” said Smith. “Also, the content covered the age span and specialty areas of Medical-Surgical, Gerontological Care, Maternal Infant, Pediatric, Mental health, Long Term Care, Home Health Care, Nutrition, and Emergency and Critical Care.”

“The grant is a unique opportunity to try to shorten or measure a nurse’s transition from novice toward expert,” said Smith. “We are trying to shorten that transition period by applying different educational strategies. This is one opportunity to demonstrate the value of hand-held computers and mobile medical references at the bedside,” she said.

--

Now that's exploiting a large untapped market - the nurses. I know of very very few nurses myself who use PDAs. The only one I helped set up a PDA wanted to use it to access her Bible and mostly non-medical stuff! I did try to get one of my nurses here to use a PDA as a data collection tool but that plan fizzled out too.
I think it's a mental block or something!

Advanced calculator tip

This thread in the MPC forums reminds me to blog about a feature in your Treo650 or newer Palm like the T5/TX/Lifedrive. When you need to (I am sure you would have encountered situations like that during work) perform some conversion like Temperature (C<>F), Length, Weight or even some basic statistics function, you can switch the Palm's Calc to Advanced mode which has lots of other features. Just tap on the Menu: Options/Advanced, and you are good to go! Medcalc, the best medical calculator for PDAs, does of course do more conversions, but your humble Palm Calculator is actually quite powerful too!

Must have freeware for your Treo

Ryan in PIC has written a very good article highlighting Must have freeware for your Treo
While these are not strictly medically related PDA apps, it is a useful resource for any doctor starting off using a Treo650.
He left out Haemoncrules ;)

Care Plan Oversight Log

Care Plan Oversight Log has been released in Freewarepalm.com

Description: Care Plan Oversight is a term used to describe primary care provider activities (other than direct patient contact) for patients receiving home care or hospice services. For such patients, all major insurers, including Medicare, will reimburse primary care providers for the time spent performing paperwork, talking on the phone and related activities. Complexity of the documentation process and choice of billing codes has prevented many providers from billing for such work. In addition, the Office of Inspector General, the investigative arm of Medicare, recently increased its scrutiny of physician documentation to support billing for Care Plan Oversight, as described in a report from Puerto Rico. As a nationally recognized leader in home care medicine and end of life care, Dr. Edward Ratner, President of Infingo, LLC recognized the difficulties of tracking and billing for Care Plan Oversight. To overcome the challenges of the required time tracking over a month, CPO Log provides a handheld computer user a menu driven method to document each 5-minute increment of time spent on Care Plan Oversight. At the end of the month, a linked personal computer program calculates the appropriate billing code and prints medical record documentation and a billing fee ticket.

USBMIS Sale of the Week

USBMIS is currently having 20% off Medical Imaging Consultant PDA Edition until midnight on March 12th.
Medical Imaging Consultant PDA Edition is the ordering physician’s quick reference for diagnostic imaging exams. It provides portable, fast access to extensive information that will help determine whether image testing is necessary, and if so, assist in choosing the most appropriate exam.

With interlinked content and a custom designed user interface, the Medical Imaging Consultant PDA Edition provides the most convenient and accurate way to select the single, best exam.

Features include:

* Current information for over 350 clinical conditions
* Data on diagnostic procedure
* Clinical benefit
* CPT Code
* Medicare reimbursement
* Radiation in chest X-ray equivalents
* Overall risk factors
* Clearly divided pediatric and adult sections
* Easy-search index

The Medical Imaging Consultant PDA Edition is supported by over 160 references as the best way to weigh the risks versus rewards of using and misusing diagnostic imaging in the most common clinical care situations.

RSM Handhelds Workshop

Dr. Chris Paton writes to inform that he is running a workshop on Handheld Computers in Medicine with Dr Mo Al-Ubaydli at the Royal Society of Medicine in London on April 6th.

The workshop is a day long hands-on event, split into two streams Beginner and Advanced.

For more details of the sessions, costs and registration, visit
www.doctorsgadgets.com

Ultimate Anesthesia Quick Reference

The Ultimate Anesthesia Quick Reference was recently updated in Memoware.

This is a free iSilo Pocket Anesthesia Reference

Description:
Contains lists, charts, checklists, guidelines, etc.
# Respiratory Events and Treatments.
# Cardiovascular Events and Treatments.
# Metabolic, Electrolyte, and Hematologic Events and Treatments.
# Neurologic Events and Treatments.
# Subspecialty Anesthesia Reference: cardiac, vascular, pulmonary, obstetrics, pediatrics, regional, pain, coagulation, medications.

Quick-tap hypertext links to related pages. Any page can be accessed through the Table of Contents or the Alphabetical Index.

For more iSilo books, you can also head over to the Medical iSilo Depot.

Skyscape at the ACC meeting

Press release:

Skyscape to Spotlight Evidence-Based Decision Support Tools and Technology for Handheld Mobile Devices at the American College of Cardiology‘s ACC.06 Scientific Session

MARLBOROUGH, MASS. – March 6, 2006 – Skyscape, Inc. will spotlight the largest library of trusted evidence-based decision support tools available for point-of-care use by cardiologists and other medical professionals in booth #4859 at the upcoming American College of Cardiology’s 55th Annual Scientific Session, in Atlanta (ACC.06), March 11-14, 2006.

Skyscape has also been selected by the ACC to deliver an eGuide for the show, which will be available at an ACC kiosk near the conference registration area. The eGuide will be available by wireless “beaming” directly to PDA, or on CD for later installation.

Skyscape, which pioneered in-context integrated medical references on PDAs, today provides more than 300 decision support resources, covering over 30 medical specialties, for use on handhelds, tablets, and smart phones.

Skyscape offers a host of titles of special interest to cardiologists, including “The AHA Clinical Cardiac Consult,” “Manual of Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Therapy,” “ACC Pocket Guidelines,” “Outlines in Clinical Medicine,” “Medicine Recall,” “ECG Notes: Interpretation and Management Guide,” “The Washington Manual® Cardiology Subspecialty Consult,” “ACCF Clinical Trials Database,” “Essentials of Diagnosis & Treatment in Cardiology,” “A Practical Approach to Transesophageal Echocardiography,” and more.


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I think eGuides for conferences are a great idea. It is so much easier to carry the conference program on one's PDA rather than lug a conference book along. The Guide should also integrate with the PDA's Calendar so it should be easy for one to highlight the talks one wishes to attend. It is also very easy to take meeting notes on one's PDA. Abstracts on the PDA would be great too!

A couple of freebies for Medical Students

I was reading a colleagues blog, Greener Pasture, and his blogpost Sacred Mnemonic contained a funny mnenomic which jogged some hibernating neurones of mine.

Anyway for medical students, here are a couple of free PDA apps you could well use:

Medical Mnemonics
"Mnemonics have existed almost as long as the medical knowledge itself. Many of these mnemonics float down from professors, demonstrators or other students. This site serves to expand the circles of sharing/exchange to a larger group worldwide. Also, by maintaining in a common source, it ensures that the knowledge will not die, but continue to be available to later learners."

ClinicalExam
A great aide memoire for those starting their clinical clerkship. You can browse a PDA friendly version online, or download a precompiled Plucker version. The site even allows you to download all the HTML files for your own custom editing.

VOIP for PalmOS

I recall having to make an urgent call to Holland on behalf of a Dutch patient who was being referred to a teaching hospital there.
It was a cinch making the call via Pocket Skype on my Dell Axim x50v over a broadband Wifi connection. And it cost me only pennies.
Now I have always been disappointed that Skype does not support PalmOS even given the fact that there are a number of Wifi capable Palms out there eg the Lifedrive.
However, Tamspalm has good news: VOIP is coming to PalmOS! Good job MantraGroup!

Pneumotox PDA version

Carl Kluge writes in about a new free medical software for PDAs, Pneumotox

Carl says:

Pneumotox (www.pneumotox.com) is a database about drugs that may damage the respiratory system. It is widely used by predominantly US users (originally it is a French site!) because it provides accurate and updated information (about 250.000 hits/year) Our PDA version can help taking this information to the bedside. The pulmonologists already using the program are very satisfied about it, as are Drs Camus and Foucher, the owners of the Pneumotox site. Maybe you want to try it and give me your opinion. The program can be downloaded as freeware at http://www.medtools.nl/products/pneumotox.html The website is in the Dutch language (except from this page), but I'm sure you will find your way. So how to inform our collegues? We have submitted an abstract to the European Respiratory Society conference, which will take place september 2006. That is a long time to go. The French site will make a link but that will not be untill a fully renewed website, which will also take some time (they are also non-commercial like us) But maybe you want to help us by making a posting on your website about this program, I think it will surely help distributing this information!

Well it certainly looks like another useful tool, Carl. It would be another PDA based tool to assist physicians at the point of care. Thank you for making it free!

Emergency! All-in-One Mobile Solution

Unbound Medicine released today Emergency Central, featuring the Emergency Medicine Manual. Like Medicine Central, Nursing Central and Anesthesia Central, Emergency Central is available for download to Palm OS and Pocket PC devices and accessible via the Web from your PC, Treo, BlackBerry or Smartphone.

Emergency Central provides quick answers to clinical questions through the integration of disease, drug and test information. Emergency Medicine Manual is the core disease resource, a distillation of the clinical content from Tintanalli’s Emergency Medicine. The popular Diagnosaurus, Davis's Drug Guide, Pocket Guide to Diagnostic Tests around out the bundle.

Over 5,600 links integrate the resources with precise connections. You can jump quickly from presentation to diagnostic assessment and then to therapeutic options.

Emergency Central has the literature management tools expected in “Central” products. Tables of content for over 250 journals and literature alerts can be directed to your PDA upon synchronization. In addition, from the Web you can search MEDLINE, browse tables of contents, or review saved articles and search results in a personal “Archive”.

To test drive Emergency Central, try the “Open House” available at http://www.unboundmedicine.com/emergency_central_open_house.htm.

Palms in Healthcare

Palmaddicts as a write up on another user experience regarding Palms in Healthcare

Similarly, our clinic made the decision a couple of years ago to deploy palm tungsten E's to our department heads and many of our physicians for the purposes of accessing current medical information and reference materials in addition to utilizing some of the fantastic diagnostic and treatment tools that are available to health professionals today. Palm's have freed our staff from their workstations and have allowed them to take their medical practice with them wherever they may need to go. I'm not saying that we've built a utopia but the pda's have definitely assisted with making many of our staff more productive and efficient.

My Treo as a Desktop replacement?

My Desktop PC in my office just died. I tried reinstalling Windows XP but I am getting these weird "STOP" errors and the infamous "Blue Screen of Death" midway during the installation process. Looks like I'll have to take it to PC hospital for some specialist care...
In the meantime I relied on my Treo650 yesterday for almost everything in the office - accesing information, patient contact management and even typing out letters. The last bit was a pain since a full size keyboard is definitely easier. I have the letter saved in Word format on my SD so for printing it's a matter of placing my SD in an adapter which makes it a thumbdrive and plug it to another PC with a printer attached.
So is my Treo650 a PC replacement in the doctor's office? Not quite, but it comes pretty close!