Free ID related references




Febrile Neutropenia is a free iSilo reference by Steve Burdette.
Description:
A basic one page reference to the approach to and management of fever in the neutropenic patient.
Organized with a hyperlinked table of contents. Compact and easy to use.





Antibiotic Mechanisms is another reference by Steve Burdette

Description:
A one page reference listing the mechanisms of action of antibiotics. Hyperlinked table of contents makes it easy to find the drug you're looking for.




Overwhelming Postsplenectomy Infection

Description:
A basic one page reference to overwhelming infection in the patient with surgical or functional asplenia.





West Nile Virus 2003 is a reference by Bob Hoyt

Description:

Very nice, easy-to-use reference to West Nile Virus infection. Includes case definitions, lab diagnosis, and clinical management. Well organized with a hyperlinked table of contents and bookmarks. Get it!


Zoonotic Diseases Tutorial by Chris Olsen

Description:
Compilation from a veterinary medicine website detailing zoonotic infections (infections that are transmitted between man and animals). Includes lots of details about background information, organism life cycles and symptoms but doesn't detail treatment in humans. Overall, a nice collection of information that could make interesting reading during down times.

Another mnemonics program

Differential Diagnosis Mnemonics v1.0 has just been released by Michael Ward.
Description:
This program helps healthcare providers come up with a differential diagnosis based upon the chief complaint.
Original, useful, easy to remember and thorough mnemonics will help providers in identifying the cause of the patient''s chief complaint.

The download is from Freewarepalm.com but apparently it is a demo version and the full version has to be purchased from the author

The future is wireless

A couple of WiFi news items from Palm Boulevard.

Palm Boulevard: News: Tungsten C Finds Way into Hospitals tells of Tungsten C devices being deployed in hospitals. Medical centres cited as examples are the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Indiana-based St. Mary's Health System and Detroit Medical Center and Wayne State University.

Direct Web Access to Patient Data details how QDX Physician Portal "enables doctors, surgeons, nurses and consultants to have real-time access, via a Web browser, to a patient's electronic health records and test results, allowing them to review lab and test results as well as all of an organization's clinical, financial and demographic information in an aggregated fashion. "

Diagnosaurus - FREE Differential Diagnosis Tool!
http://books.mcgraw-hill.com/medical/diagnosaurus/index.html
Diagnosaurus is a free differential diagnosis (DDx) PDA tool from McGraw-Hill Professional. It is available in both PalmOS and PocketPC. Try it! =P

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!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Peds Calc v1.0



FreewarePalm: Peds Calc v1.0 is yet another medical freebie you can try.

Description:
Peds Calc simplifies the calculation of pediatric medication doses, providing volumes of up to three solutions for each medication.

BabyCheck

For first time parents especially, FreewarePalm: BabyCheck v2.0 has just been updated. This might be just the software for you to keep track of your baby's progress. Freeware.

Update Description:
v2.0:
Added: Possibility to export in a CSV form the data (measurements, first words and first actions) from BabyCheck to the Memo. The character ';' is used ad delimiter because '.' and ',' can be used as decimal separator. After Hotsync you are then able to import the data in any spreadsheet or database on your desktop
Added: If the firstname is too long to fit the main screen list size it will be shorten for the display and '...' will be added at the end
Added: More place to enter the firstname in the Birth Information screen
Added: When creating a new Baby record, the default text 'New' is selected allowing you to overwrite it directly
Added: Help text in the symbolic screen

SIF always in shape v1

FreewarePalm: SIF sempre in forma v1.0 è disponibile per il trasferimento dal sistema centrale verso i satelliti da FreewarePalm

Description:
Una guida completa per iniziare o continuare a curare la propria forma fisica.
Grazie alla collaborazione di professionisti quali Stefano Rizzi, CN III Dan e la Palestra Gymnasium Club di Castel San Giovanni (PC), sono stati creati e inseriti dei contenuti semplici e pratici basati, (in questa prima versione) sulla "corsa" e sullo "stretching".

(Se avete bisogno dell'aiuto con la traduzione, usi i pesci di Altavista Babele)

Skyscape releases Artbeat - free dynamic content for your Palm

Artbeat has been released by Skyscape.

"ARTbeat Brings Dynamic Content to PDAs

ARTbeat supports this critical need for information by enabling the practitioner to dynamically access the latest medical news such as drug and disease alerts, as well as frequently updated information such as drug weeklies and journal subscriptions via the handheld. ARTbeat supports multiple channels of information with each source of content existing in its own channel. All channels are organized hierarchically in ARTbeat allowing for easy selection, navigation and review of current information. Channels can contain many types of content including content from publishers, custom content, Web, journals, peer-reviewed content and newsletters. "

"To begin realizing the benefits of ARTbeat, medical professionals can go to www.skyscape.com to download ARTbeat for Free and to subscribe to other high value ARTbeat information channels. Information from ARTbeat is dynamically integrated via smARTlinkTM with other Skyscape-powered information and is updated whenever users synchronize their PDAs, providing medical professionals with the most current information in context at the point-of-care. For example, if there is a news flash on a specific cancer treatment, a user doesn’t have to review all alerts to find it – a link to it will automatically appear when the user is reviewing cancer information and then smARTlinks. By using smARTlink in conjunction with ARTbeat, the user immediately gets right to the information needed which is a tremendous time saving advantage. "

The initial ARTbeat channels are:

· MedWatch—Free—The Food & Drug Administration's Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program provides important and timely clinical information about safety issues involving medical products including prescription & over-the-counter drugs, biologics, medical & radiation-emitting devices and special nutritional products & dietary supplements.

· Drug News Weekly—A weekly that features brief articles on the latest in critical drug information and news including new drug approvals, indications and dose forms, Rx to OTC switches, newly reported interactions and adverse reactions, plus news scans from national media reports.

· DrugLink®—A monthly newsletter that provides abstracts of drug-related articles from various journals. DrugLink® allows health care professionals to stay up-to-date on hot topics without having to subscribe to multiple publications.

· CDC Spotlights –Free– A weekly update from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Website to provide medical professionals with the latest information on SARS, Monkeypox and other potentially rapidly-spreading diseases, including bio-terrorism agents.

· Connections –Free— A Skyscape channel that provides customers with Tips & Tricks, Store Specials, New Releases, Your Voice, Top Solutions and In The News sections.

Read the full Press Release

Coma Predictor

New at FreewarePalm: Coma Predictor v1.0 - by Michael Ward.

Description:
This is a program to help (mainly Neurologists) with Prognosis for outcome from Hypoxic Ischemic coma.
This is based upon the Levy paper from JAMA in 1985.

Medcalc 4.4 update

MedCalc v4.4 has been updated. It now supports dynamic input area and landscape support on compatible devices - i.e. T|T3!! Hurray!!!!

Human Nutrient Requirement Calculator

FreewarePalm: Human Nutrient Requirement Calculator v1.0:

Description:
Utility to assist in the process calculating the nutrient requirements of your body based upon age and sex.
A very useful tool for teaching nutritional concepts and for those interested in their diets impact on their body.

Diabetes in Primary Care

Diabetes in Primary Care 2003 v 2.0 by Steven Lawenda MD is now available for download from Memoware.

The blurb:
"Diabetes in Primary Care 2003 is a practical, logically organized reference that puts the latest in diabetes recommendations and therapy right in the palm of your hand. Diabetes in Primary Care 2003 is an essential tool for primary care providers. It provides quick and easy access to the latest diabetes recommendations (2003) in a most logical format, integrated with the latest in therapy. Topics include: prevention, screening, diagnosis, therapy including the latest in oral agents and insulin, complications of diabetes, inpatient management, preconception care, gestational diabetes, and resources for providers and patients. The content is extensive, relevant, and up-to-date. Best of all, this program was designed to be easy to navigate and use, with minimal scrolling or searching required to find what you're looking for. All sections are extensively cross-linked and bookmarked, providing an unsurpassed logical 'web' of essential information. The latest version (2.0) added the new sections on inpatient management and gestational diabetes. The new version has also been re-organized to be even more logical and intuitive to use. Compatible with Palm OS, Windows CE and Pocket PC. Requires iSilo version 3.0 or greater. "

Another example of Palms in Medicine

Wireless reality is another example of technology put to good use at the Baptist St. Anthony's Hospital.

'Dr. William Biggs, an endocrinologist, said that when he arrives at the hospital, he synchronizes his PDA through an infrared port. It takes from three to five minutes, depending on the number of patients.

"The lab reports are in there, the X-ray reports are in there, and then if my staff needs to get some of the demographic data for our files, then they can just look in my Palm when I get back in my office," he said.

His Handspring Trio is an integrated phone and Palm-compatible device on which he also keeps the Physicians Desk Reference. He can consult the latest information on dosages, side effects and drug interactions. If another specialist prescribed a drug he doesn't know well, information is right there, he said.

"It's faster than opening the PDR book," he said.'

Muxles

The folk at Xenware may not know how to spell very well but they can sure program and have come up with Muxles.

The blurb:
"Muxles is an interactive muscle map and reference that will help you learn all the major muscles in the body, as well as their functions. Muxles is meant to help you become an expert in which muscle does what, what types of exercises can work it, and other tips, such as typical required recovery periods, and more. On color-capable Palm-Powered™ devices, Muxles runs in dazzling color."

Preventing Migraine Headaches

Free guidebook by Dr John Allocca titled Preventing Migraine Headaches, Depression, Insomnia, and Bipolar Syndrome 2003


Download from Freewarepalm.com

Skyscape references for EMS/PAramedics

Skyscape has expanded their references for emergency medical personnel.
Top references include:
- Communicable Diseases and Infection Control for EMS
- Pocket Reference for EMTs and Paramedics
- Pocket Reference for the EMT-B and First Responder
- Terrorism Response: Field Guide for Fire & EMS Organizations
- Special Operations Forces Medical Handbook

Visit Skyscape for more....

Congenital Heart Defects

Another freebie for medical students and any student of cardiology. Congenital Heart Defects is a free iSilo document by Michael Chesney available for download from Memoware.
It is a collection of 15 common congenital heart defects from Aortic Stenosis to VSDs. This is a fully illustrated document and the layout is very neat and explanation clear .The file is large though, I guess because of all the pictures, and hence would be better off residing in your expansion memory card.

Lippincottt's Nursing Drug Guide

Unbound Medicine has just released 2004 Lippincott's Nursing Drug Guide.

The blurb:
2004 Lippincott's Nursing Drug Guide powered by Unbound Medicine includes more than 900 monographs covering 3,800 generic and trade name medications. It provides nurses and students instant access to all the drug information needed in day-to-day nursing practice.
Entries cover generic and trade names; pronunciations; pregnancy risk category; controlled substance schedule (where applicable); drug class; therapeutic actions; indications, including off-label indications; contraindications and cautions; available forms; adult, pediatric, and geriatric dosages; pharmacokinetics; IV facts (where applicable); adverse effects; interactions; assessment; interventions; and teaching points. Also included are monographs covering drug classes and information on combination products, commonly used biologicals, and less commonly used drugs.

Unbound Medicine Releases Comprehensive Suite of Pediatric References for PDAs

Unbound Medicine today announced that it has introduced six new PDA references on its mobile knowledge management platform, CogniQ™. The CogniQ Pediatrics Series includes leading pediatrics publications from PocketMedicine combined with Unbound Medicine's unique literature management service, Unbound MEDLINE.

STAT A-Fib Stroke Risk

Satcoder does it again with this freebie STAT A-Fib Stroke Risk v0.02 which you can download from Freewarepalm.

Description:Announcing beta testing of a new freeware Palm OS application, STAT A-Fib Stroke Risk implementing a risk score for predicting stroke or death in individuals with new-onset atrial fibrillation in the community.
This is based on an article in the August JAMA published by The Framingham Heart Study.

From the JAMA editorial on this article: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common clinical problem affecting an estimated 2.3 million adults in the US.

Nearly 4% of persons aged 60 or older have AF. Prevention of ischemic stroke presents a major challenge as determining which patients with AF should receive oral anticoagulation is always a critical question.

Often, patients with clear indications for anticoagulation do not receive it.

Considering that accurate risk stratification is essential to identify patients who have the best chance of benefit from oral anticoagulant therapy, clinicians should find the Framingham risk scoring system a useful aid for clinical decisionmaking.

It's even better in Landscape mode

One of the strong points of the Tungsten T3 is the ability to view pages in Landscape mode. This is very useful for spreadsheets and documents. In Are you Up-To-Date with Repligo?, I enthused about how useful Repligo was in taking with you your Acrobat documents, web pages etc. While the documents were very well reproduced in a tiny footprint, it was a bit of a pain having to "side-scroll" alot while reading the documents. It's much easier now in landscape mode:



The default installation of Repligo does not support landscape mode in the T|T3. However Cerience has provided some nifty utilities which allow you to view Repligo in landscape mode. It seems to work for iSilo too.

My New Tungsten T3

Have been busy reinstalling my apps into my new TT3. Really appreciate the oodles of Ram. Really necessary since some of the medical applications like ePocrates can't run off the SD card.
My initial impressions

Mood Stats

Need to keep track of your mood? Would you believe it someone has come up with a utility to do so. Spotted in FreewarePalm: Mood Stats v1.0

Description:
Use this program to keep track of your daily mood.
View your mood data on both daily and monthly charts.
This program is a useful tool for people suffering from depression and other mood disorders.
Supports both monochrome and color devices.

Computers ease home-health care workload

PDAs are getting more and more indispensable. If you haven't got one yet, when are you getting it?

"In medicine, if it isn't written down, it doesn't exist. Now technology, not as gee-whiz as the multimillion dollar X-ray machines, is changing patient charting.

For Julie Gwyn, a veteran home health-care nurse, a hand-held computer is as much a part of her supplies as a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff.

The little computer's memory stores her appointments and - most important - vital information about each patient: medical history, drugs, doctors' orders, allergies and specific protocols, or rules, for each patient's diagnosis and treatment. The data are no further away than the end of her stylus"

Read more...

Spotted in FreewarePalm: Medical Abbreviations Dictionary v1.27

Description:
This FREE DICTIONARY for BDicty reader program contains:
- A Medical Abbreviations lexicon contains ­ 440 entries in 7 KB.
- A FREE Public version of BDicty (reader program for the dictionary) ­ 38 KB.

PDAs Are Good Medicine

Doctor Recommended: PDAs Are Good Medicine is an interesting news item which tells of a recent AvantGo® survey which "uncovers why medical professionals are among the fastest adopters of mobile technology".
"Results of the 2003 AvantGo Healthcare Professional Survey show that medical professionals are using PDAs most often to access clinical information (70%), get medical news (58%) and leverage medical calculators (57%). And they are doing so regularly - nearly half of respondents indicated that they access AvantGo health-related channels once a week or more. In addition, specialty news, medical abstracts and practice management tips topped the mobile content wish list."

Do you AvantGo? I do. But looking at my channels lately, none seem to be medical. I get my dose of medical news from RSS nowadays (see a couple of blog posts back on RSS) :)

SpeakEasy EMS Translator

"Imagine responding to a 9-1-1 call and you are met by a group of people speaking in a foreign language. You can't even figure out who is hurt, or where they are. You may not even know if you are at the right location. Imagine finding a victim who is speaking to you, but you can't understand what they are trying to tell you. You can't ask the basic questions like "Does this hurt?" or "Are you taking any medications?". You don't even know what type of translator to request on the radio."

If you live in a multi-lingual multi-cultural society as I do, coping with multiple languages and dialects can be a nightmare. Oh, don't I wish for a Universal Translator device ala StarTrek. Unfortunately such a device does not yet exist. However,
SpeakEasy EMS Translator by Pocket Mobility, Inc aims at least to help EMS personnel cope with vital phrases in various languages.

Lets see them come up with Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Tamil, Gujerati, Thai, Korean and Japanese. Then I'd be interested. ;)
I think if someone could come up with a product which has text->speech utilising themultimedia capabilities of the newer PDAs, that would be also very interesting.

Palm OS RSS News Reader

Finally. I have been going about in a convoluted fashion trying to get RSS feeds into my Palm using Amphetadesk and iSilo. The efforts were chronicled here.


Palminfocenter has a story about StandAlone releasing the first Palm OS RSS Newsreader. You can get your favorite (medical or non-medical) RSS feed now directly into your Palm via Hotsync or from the Internet directly if your Palm has direct Internet access.


The blurb from StandAlone:
Hand/RSS for Palm OS includes a variety of news feeds including:
BBC News
Boing Boing
CNet News
Fark.com
MSNBC
Salon.com
SlashDot
The Register
Wired
and many more!
Additionally, you can add any new feeds quickly and easily! For a searchable list of RSS feeds to add, visit Syndic8.

PDAs mandatory for med students

UB Reporter: PDAs mandated for med students reports how the University at Buffalo, USA has made PDAs mandatory for medical students.

"Move over, Stedman's. Make way, Netter's. At the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, all medical students have added something new—and high-tech—to their list of must-have school supplies: a personal digital assistant, more commonly known as a PDA.

The school last year began requiring all first-year students to report for class with one of the palm-sized, computer-compatible organizers. This fall, students in all four classes are expected to own one."

"Rapid access to information at the bedside makes a big difference in the quality of patient care. Clearly, PDAs offer significant advantages in medicine, and we wanted our students to be at the forefront of this technology."

If you are a staff member of a medical school reading this, listen up: "Do you want your students to be at the forefront of technology"??
PDAs have come a long way, baby.

Vanderbilt and Skyscape

Palm Boulevard: News: Vanderbilt Nursing School Leverages PDAs: "Vanderbilt University School of Nursing has selected Skyscrape's smARTlink handheld references for use in the school’s Pediatric Nurse Practitioner program.
“Having mobile versions of the same trusted textbooks I would normally assign to my students is extremely advantageous. And with Skyscape’s technology combined with the student discount program, the PDA references provide more value,' said Renee McLeod, program director, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Program at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. 'Skyscape’s technology enables my students to seamlessly smARTlink from the Five Minute Pediatric Clinical Consult to Stedman’s Dictionary or A2Z Drugs, whether in an ‘open-PDA’ exam or in their clinical site.” "

Babycheck 1.4
FreewarePalm: BabyCheck v1.4 has been updated.
Features:
- Weight and Height follow up during the 3 first years
- Visual check with the average values
- List of the first words
- Birth information: Weight, Height, Date and Time
- Zodiacal sign
- Firstname symbolic (lucky number, lucky period)

Diagnosaurus

McGraw Hill and Unbound Medicine have come up with a free download called Diagnosaurus which is billed as a differential diagnosis tool.
Diagnosaurus includes diagnoses adapted from CURRENT Medical Diagnosis and Treatment, providing access to more than 1,000 differential diagnoses, covering more than 500 symptoms and signs, and 700 diseases.
Information is alphabetically categorized and searchable by disease, symptom and organ system. The symptom selections are all hyperlinked with cross-references to related diagnoses within the program.

News source: Palm Bouelvard

Westmead MO's handbook 2003

The Westmead Hospital Medical Officers' Handbook 2003 edition is now available in iSilo format as a download from Memoware.

The Westmead Hospital is a busy hospital serving the western part of Sydney, Australia. It's great that they have come up with a handy booklet which I think will be very useful for their residents. Some of the info there is specific to the hospital but the other bits of info are generic. Worth checking out.

ICUMath

Spotted in FreewarePalm: ICUmath.

Description:

51 adult ICU applications using 80 medical equations, pulmonary, cardiology, BNP nomogram, pharmacokinetic dosing, renal, electrolyte, chemistry, nutrition, TPN, perioperative risk, biostatistics, acls, apache II, unit conversions, rules of thumb.

The floppy is dead. Long live flash memory!

One thing about me sticking with PalmOne pdas rather than migrating to the Sony camp has been the SD memory card format. If you have a digital camera (I use a Kyocera Finecam S3) or other gadgets which use SD/MMC memory cards, then it's great being able to interchange the cards. Lately I have been using these cards to transport files to and fro. Have been using USB card readers but carrying around cables isn't cool. Just got an Imation FlashGo PCA 4in1 card reader which reads SD/MMC/SmartMedia/Memory Stick cards in a compact PCMCIA plug-n-play format is really cool.

Top 10 Medical Software at Palmgear by Downloads

I thought I'd list them as reported by Palmgear sort by category listing. Isn't it amazing 2 out of top 3 are software for women?

Top 10 downloaded Medical Software from Palmgear:

1 Woman Calendar 5.1 115,096 25-Oct-02
Woman is a personal ovulation calendar and family planning tool for women.Its major goal is to help storing, organizing and using the information encoded in past menstrual cycles

2 MedCalc 4.3 105,917 29-Apr-03
Med Calc is the most full-featured medical calculator for Palm OS (76 formulas and scores, localized for french and english). Main features: free easy to use comprehensive (76 formulas)

3 MS Woman 6.0 95,318 11-Aug-03
MSWoman is a monthly cycle tracking software for Palm, which rightly meets the needs of today's busy women. Extremely practical and user-friendly.

4 MedRules 3.3 63,088 05-Jun-03
MedRules is an award-winning application featuring useful clinical prediction rules taken from the medical literature.

5 MedMath 1.21 57,963 07-Jul-02
MedMath is a medical calculator for the Palm, written by a physician for rapid calculation of common formulas in adult internal medicine. Features more than 30 formulas sorted by category

6 ePocrates Rx 6.0 55,185 30-Oct-02
Used by over 650,000 healthcare professionals, ePocrates Rx is the most easy to use, comprehensive and widely adopted drug reference for Palm OS handheld devices.

7 Eponyms 1.69 34,108 19-May-03
Rovsing's sign? Virchow's node? Here is a database of over 1400 common and obscure medical eponyms.

8 Medical Dictionary Bundle /Beiks/ 2.6 32,739 11-Jul-03
Everyone should have a Medical Dictionary, but it is particularly important for medical students and allied health professionals.

9 Common Medical Lab Values w/ Diffs 1.1a 29,393 15-Jul-01
This is a program that contains common medical lab values with differentials. What are symptoms of hyponatremia or causes or increased BUN! Now you can have the information at the tip of your tongue.

10 ABG Pro 2.2 26,928 22-Oct-00
An amazing program that will completely analyze arterial blood gases for you! No longer will you be confused by ABG's.

Medical info at your fingertips

Mobile Content Goes to the Doctor is another recent article on this issue. Nothing much new covered here but it brings up another age-old issue: Palm vs Pocket PC:

To quote the article:

To date, the Palm remains the device of choice, but Dr. John Halamka, who is CIO at both Harvard Medical School and CareGroup Healthcare says that while Palm is the clear favorite, devices running Windows CE are making inroads, and people in his facilities are using a variety of devices. "What's interesting, although it's true we're seeing a tipping point of doctors going more to Windows CE devices, the Palm OS still has mindshare." Halamka attributes this to a couple of factors. First of all, he points out that the Palm form factor is small and fits neatly into the doctor's white-jacket pocket. He says, "The Compaq iPaq is a little big, so it doesn't quite fit." Further, he says that many folks in his organization don't have offices and therefore don't have access to a charging cradle, so they need a device with a long battery life.

IDC's Slawsby says, "I think the battery life of [Palms] tends to be significantly longer than that of Pocket PCs, which enables a doctor to have that device with them and use it for a couple of days at a time without having to find a [charging] cradle. Traditionally with Pocket PCs, you've had to recharge them at least once a day and that makes it very difficult if a doctor needs the device and has to put it in a cradle because it doesn't operate." Slawsby also points out that Palms cost less. He says, "Palms also tend to be cheaper and doctors can find the requisite amount of functionality at a lower price from a Palm than they can with a Pocket PC."

So who will win the battle for the doctors' pockets: Palm or PPC?

Mobile Lipid Clinic


Mobile Lipid Clinic is offering 2 free CHD Risk Assessment Calculators and
the free Mobile Lipid Clinic™ Patient Management Program.

The CHD Risk Calculators provide basic assessments based on the Framingham Heart Study and the ATP III Treatment Guidelines.

The programs run on a PalmTM PDA or Windows® based computers. Interested practitioners may download these programs for free.

I think such programs are useful educational tools for front-line practitioners. There are other benefits of using electronic data capture (EDC) and SST is one such company which works with pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies in this area.

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Washington University, and Skyscape, Inc.

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Washington University, and Skyscape, Inc. Give Medical Students, Residents, and Fellows Instant Electronic Access to Vital Clinical Information :

"Leading medical publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) and Washington University, today announced they will expand their existing partnership. In addition to The Washington Manual(TM) of Medical Therapeutics, Thirtieth Edition there will be two new PDA series. Skyscape, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise-wide mobile medical and nursing reference solutions will partner with LWW and Washington University to release handheld versions of The Washington Manual(TM) Survival Guide Series and The Washington Manual(TM) Subspecialty Consult Series. The already successful guidebook series will now be available in PDA format, giving medical students, residents, and fellows quick and reliable access to point-of-care information they need to face the challenges of residency and clerkship. "

Wow.Aren't we spoilt for choice...

More wireless docs

Another article on Wifi and doctors here: WIRELESS:Just What the Doctor Ordered.

Makes me wonder when the WiFI SD cards are gonna be released. Seems like they are taking forever. I would love to be able to access hospital/lab data via WiFi from my PDA.
But I think this is going to the extreme:
"Bruce Brown, a physician at St Vincent's, says he believes using mobile technology to access and update medical records will help him spend more time with patients.
Before Brown began using a wireless wearable computer from Xybernaut, complete with an LCD screen mounted on his glasses, he commuted between his patients and hills of paper. " That's too geeky, even for me LOL.

Diabetes-Software für das deutschsprechende

Wenn Sie Deutsches und haben Diabetes mellitus sprechen, dann kann diese Palme Software Sie interessieren.
Das blurb:
Diabetes Patienten über einen langen Zeitraum beobachten zu können.
Mit dem Werkzeug ist der Patient in der Lage, mit seinem Diabetes Berater die Behandlung zu besprechen und seinen Anforderungen entsprechend anzugleichen.
Eine Beobachtung des Blutzuckerspiegels in Papierform soll damit überflüssig werden.

More use for the T|T's Bluetooth?

I use Bluetooth everyday. My SE t610 phone connects via Bluetooth to my SE HBH-30 headset for wireless handsfree. Great when driving and when the hospital calls you. I also use Bluetooth to connect my T|T to my SE t610 phone to dial (my Palm has 3500 contacts, try keeping that number on your mobile!) , send SMS (short message service) messages (yes, sometimes to patients too!)and sometimes to connect via GPRS to the 'net for email and other stuff. Now that the FDA Approves First Medical System Using Bluetooth Wireless Technology we might be seeing more Bluetooth enabled medical devices and perhaps more use of this technology with our handhelds in the future.

OnTimeRx and Healthcare providers

When I first checked out OnTimeRx, it was a rather simple medication reminder. In it's latest version, there are more features:
- Reminders for all medication doses - Routine or PRN
- Reminders for remaining Days Supply
- Reminders for To Do events
- All Reminders have auto-snooze alarms
- Activity response log for Drugs and To Do events
- Personal medical history and 911 data
- List manager for healthcare supplies

Currently, OnTimeRx has a Healthcare Provider Program. This is a "business model to provide special benefits and incentives for pharmacists, nurses, and doctors who utilize On-Time-Rx® in practice or recommend its use for their patients". If you think promoting a tool which will help your patients become more compliant with the medications is a good thing, then I think it might be worth checking out this program.Some other benefits include "a custom banner for the On-Time-Rx® main screen that displays your facility's name and phone number" . If I read the registration form right, you get a free reg code by signing up with them too!

DSM-IV-TR

Skyscape has recently released DSM-IV-TR, the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, in the familiar Skyscape e-book reference system. I remember during my medical student days, lugging around DMS-III during my Psychiatry rotation. Now you can carry the latest edition right in your Palm!
The blurb:
"Since the DSM-IV™ was published in 1994, there have been many advances in our knowledge of psychiatric illness. This Text Revision incorporates information culled from a comprehensive literature review of research about mental disorders published since DSM-IV™ was completed in 1994. Updated information is included about the associated features, culture, age, and gender features, prevalence, course, and familial pattern of mental disorders. "

Doc Panama eBooks

Doc Panama is Physician assistant whose website has a number of nice free iSilo medical ebooks.
The screenshots on his page were taken from a lores Palm and I wondered what some of the ebooks would look like in hires Palms such as the Tungsten T.


The Chest XRay guide is an adaptation of Dr Barbara Ritter's book in iSilo format.
This is a handy reference manual covering basic chest radiology and recognition of pathological conditions. I think the content is great and would be an invaluable addition to the medical or nursing students ebook library. I'm keeping a copy on my SD for now too as I think it would be a nice revision for me as well!
The images show up quite nicely in hires but the font was initially too small (well, for my eyes anyway) but looked better when the font size was adjusted to large

Interpreting the 12 Lead ECG (that's EKG for you Yankees - when will you guys learn to spell ;) ) is another iSilo adaptation from Doc Panama where the images also appear quite nicely on a hires Palm. The book deals with the basics of 12-lead monitoring to recognition of AMI and other pathologies by their waveforms. There is no coverage on arrhythmias I am afraid, so you will have to look elsewhere (take a look at this US$10 Pocket Brain's 12 lead ECG book). However this freebie too would make a nice addition to library of the medical student coming to grips with ECGs for the first time.

BNF in your Palm (II)
-- Details removed at the request of the BNF --

The T|T on that trip

Recently went to Hanoi on a trip to give a talk. How useful was my PDA?
Extremely.
Apps used:
1) Worldmatepro - checked weather, timezone difference, scheduled airport and hotel check-in/checkout times, list things to take along
2) Agendus - schedule meeting events and take notes during the meeting
3) Docs2Go for taking my Powerpoint presentation with me so that I could run thru the slides before the talk - much faster than booting up a notebook (besides I did not bring along my notebook, only my talk burned on a CD-R and a backup stored on SD card)
4) Games to pass the time away while travelling on the road, the longest being the road trip to Halong Bay. Beautiful place and well worth the visit.....

Coping with Info Overload using your Palm & RSS

Wired News: Aggregators Attack Info Overload is an interesting article which highlights the increasing popularity of "News Aggregators". I don't know about you, but I suffer from the "Not Enough Time" syndrome and anything which can save me from having to say, surf for information is most welcome. Lots of medical information is now available from Newsfeeds. These come in XML or RSS (rich site summary) format. You need to have a News Aggregator to be able to "pull" in the feeds of your choice. But having set the Aggregator, you no longer have to surf over to the sites for the articles you one. You can peruse the topic headings and selectively click on the links of your choice.

Now what about the Palm? There's no news aggregator for Palm OS AFAIK. This is my solution:

1) I use Amphetadesk - which is a Web based News aggregator. It's easy to setup and available on multiple platforms - Windows, Mac and Linux.

2) Having setup the Newsfeeds and getting Amphetadesk to work properly, you get to view all your "news channels" in a single web page (in my case it is http://127.0.0.1:8888/index.html - don't bother clicking on this link - it opens only on your local machine)

3) I set iSiloX to convert http://127.0.0.1:8888/index.html to an iSilo document (0 link depth). The conversion is perfect and I can take my updated Amphetadesk aggregated News with me to browse offline.

Where to get Newsfeeds? A good place to start is Syndic8 where you can find Medical newsfeeds in XML/RSS format from sites like Moreover, Medscape and others. Sometimes, the description may be too brief and the drawback of this system is that clicking on the "link" in iSilo does not take you to the external web page obviously, but you can Copy & Paste the URL into a Webbrowser (I use WebBrowserPro on my T|T) if you happen to have Internet access (I use Bluetooth to connect with a Bluetooth enabled PC with ADSL access at work but you could do this say over GPRS or WiFi)

Elton Billing

If you are interested in a billing solution, you might check out Elton Billing which is based on Pendragon Forms. Pendragon is another database solution for the Palm which allows you to desing database forms on the PDA and synchronize the data with server databases. The Elton billing solution is for gastroenterology or general use and is compatible with Access 97, 2000 and XP.

Evidence Based Pearls

EBP 1.3 has been released in Palmgear.
Application Description:
Evidence Based Pearls (EBP) is the dynamic application you need for providing quality, evidence based care!
EBP provides you with the most important patient centered EBM research at the point of care; accessed through an easy to use interface.
Additionally, this program provides you with a portal to record your Personal Pearls into the EBP database, personalizing this application with your "little black book" of clinical information.
Quarterly, you receive an update of the database, without losing your Personal Pearls. Periodically, we will send you email alerts to keep you current on important medical research.
By having Evidence Based Pearls on your PDA, you will have on hand the information to provide quality care wherever you treat patients.
Our editorial board is comprised of primary care physicians, all of whom are clinical faculty at major medical teaching institutions and nationally recognized for their expertise in quality clinical care and Evidence Based Medicine.
Each topic is derived from a well-respected publication, analyzed by our board, and condensed into a "pearl". Also included is an abbreviated abstract, and journal reference.
This tool will help you stay on top of the clinical information explosion by providing an analysis and summary of important, patient centered research.

ER Suite and Medical Wizards

pdaMD.com features a review on ER Suite and Medical by an ER Nurse.

Cardiology specials from Skyscape

If you are a cardiologist, you might be interested to know that Skyscape is having a special offer for cardiologists. The commercial (I am not getting paid for this, just passing on the good news!):
Save 15% when you buy ANY three or more titles! Maximize these best-selling titles when you cross-reference with other Skyscape-powered diagnosis, drug, and drug interaction references.

5mCardiac™, DrDrugs™, CrdBrdRev™
Use a mini-library in the palm of your hand with Skyscape's special value packages! Improve your professional efficiency and save money with this special offer that includes three best selling titles. Discover the benefits of cross-indexing 5mCardiac (The AHA Clinical Cardiac Consult), the expert guide to common and rare cardiac abnormalities; DrDrugs (Drug Guide for Physicians), a premier drug guide; and CrdBrdRev (Cardiology Intensive Board Review), a highly focused question-and-answer review that is geared specifically to candidates taking the Cardiovascular Boards and the Cardiovascular section of the Internal Medicine Boards. Buy now and save!

Automated billing

Right now where I work, billing consultation is done manually and I have to fill in "vouchers". If I forget, then my loss. Primitive workflow? You bet.
In the article on Brigham & Women's Hospital Chooses Handhelds, the electronic solution utilising PatientKeeper sounds so elegant.
"According to PatientKeeper, the PatientKeeper Charge Capture Application Suite automates a billing process that typically relies on individual billing cards. Instead of jotting information on the cards, doctors use the PatientKeeper system to simply check off the customizable diagnosis codes and services performed on their handhelds. The PatientKeeper Clinical Application Suite consists of a variety of tools for reading and analyzing all types of patient data such laboratory results, medication lists, allergies, and clinical documentation."

Anatomy 4.0

This is one subject which requires constant revision. What better way to do this than to carry the information in the Palm of your hand? Anatomy 4.0 has been updated and now supports database storage in the memory card (i.e. VFS support).

Application Description:Anatomy is a quick reference of human anatomy for the Palm OS. Ten databases describe the different body systems. The information in each database is categorized into different "Detail Views".
The registered version will allow full access to all of the following databases:
Arteries, Veins , Lymphatics , Bones , Joints , Muscles , Brain Structures ,Nerves ,Visceral Organs ,Surface Anatomy

HaemOncRules 1.1

I have released the updated version of HaemOncRules with 17 modules now. The new modules are:
- ECOG and Karnofsky scores
- Heparin dosing algorithm
- DVT diagnostic algorithm

You can get this freeware from Palmgear, Freewarepalm, Handango or my software page.

I look forward to more feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Free Palm Medical Software

While surfing today, I stumbled across this page:
PalmDiary dot Com - Free Medical Palm Software which has a fairly long list of Palm Medical software. Some titles appear new to me and I will be checking these out.

Baby check

We have all sorts of "trackers" for PalmOS now - track your BP, track your blood glucose etc. Now with FreewarePalm: BabyCheck v1.0 you can track your baby's progress :)
Description:
Babies information administration.
Features:
- Weight and Height follow up during the 3 first years
- Visual check with the average values
- List of the first words
- Birth information: Weight, Height, Date and Time
- Zodiacal sign
- Firstname symbolic (lucky number, lucky period)
This program works in Kg or Lb, Cm or In.

MedRules Rulez!
PalmGear Announces Top 10 Applications for Palm-Connected Handhelds for July

The top 10 applications on the PalmGear site in July were:

* Aerodrome Software's AeroPlayer, an enhancement that turns a Tungsten T,
Tungsten C or Zire 71 into a portable MP3 audio player.
* Datoru Drosibas Tehnologijas' FlyZip XR, a compressing and decompressing
utility that doubles the amount of information stored on Palm OS
handhelds without modifying the hardware.
* ZZTECH's ZLauncher, a system management program integrating the system
supervisor, application/database manager and expansion card manager.
* Ardiri's Lemmings, a fun free game for the Palm, implemented from the
classic game originally created by Psygnosis.
* Ants Technologies' DataKeeper, a database utility that maintains
personal information such as passwords, credit cards, bank information,
birthdays, flights, hotels and URLs in a single location.
* PocketSensei's SilverScreen, a tool that customizes your Palm OS
interface with a library of various stylish themes.
* Kent Willyard's MedRules, a medical application that features clinical
prediction rules.
* Ants Technologies' DateBook on Clock, brings users address book, date
book, to do list, mail, etc. onto one easy to read interface.
* Arcona Magi's Medieval Heroes, a free historical strategy game.
* PDA 3Dware's 3D Blockout, the only three-dimensional falling blocks game
for the Palm.

Medical Abbreviations

I am sure many a medical or nursing student have emerged from wards bewildered by case note entries such as:

Pt 44 yr old Ind M c/o SOB 3 mths, LOA and LOW. BNO for 4 days. PHI of HBP, NIDDM . o/e T 38 PERL EENT NAD, CVS DRNM, Abd L°S°K°

Doctors are guilty of such horrible indecipherable abbreviations (as if the writing is not bad enough!!).

I came across 2 freebies in Palmgear.com which may be useful to those struggling to cope with this issue.

Medical Abbreviations by Krystof J. Neumann is one.
Application Description:Medical Abbreviations is a FREE, very easy to use, searchable database that currently includes over 2000 common and not-so-common medical abbreviations from AA to ZPP, and from HEENT to BRBPR, that was compiled with the hope of reducing some of the confusion that results from the use abbreviations in medical charting.

For some reason I could not run this program on my T|T. Perhaps it is not OS 5 compatible. I shall try it a bit later on my m515 and post the results here. Anyway no harm trying it as it may work for you.

Medical Abbreviations 3.0 is an iSilo document by Kiup Alex Kim . This has over 3000 abbreviations. The released version is free but the author (a medical student) can send you updated versions if you wish, for a nominal fee

There are other Payware Medical Abbreviations on Palmgear, some purporting to contain over 10,000 listings (goodness, are there that many).
I'll bet none have "UFEME" - can you guess what this obscure abbreviation stands for - it's used I think only in my part of the world ;)

Moses Cone Health System

"The doctors, on average, save anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes per day by using this solution in their rounds. The time saved gets pretty staggering when you talk about how many people we have per hospital."

According to John Jenkins, CIO at Moses Cone, "The challenges that we have are that the physicians need a convenient way to collect information about the patients they are caring for. We have clinical systems in place, but they require going to a computer, sitting down, and getting the information; then, either transposing it to a piece of paper or remembering what they've seen to go deal with their patient. It was inconvenient and it was fairly time-consuming. What we were looking for was a solution that would be easy for the physician to carry around and could present the clinical data that they needed for their patient care one that they could get to very easily and quickly. MercuryMD and the Palm handheld provide that solution for us."

How did they use MercuryMD's MData to perform all this wizardry?

"Several infrared beaming stations are located around the hospital buildings. Pointing the Palm handheld at one of the beaming stations allows clinicians to download patient data, treatment plans, lab results, and other patient information. The doctors, on average, save anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes each day. Pharmacists, who previously had to write or print information about each patient every morning, can also access patient records and prescriptions via Palm handhelds. The Palm handheld solution results in less paperwork and saves each pharmacist an hour or more a day"

Read the full Palm article here on how Moses Cone Health Systems did it.

Jim's new Palm

Jim Thompson, another Palm toting emergency medico has upgraded to the T|T2. His My Tungsten T2 page details his thoughts on his new Palm. It apparently was a necessity as Jim's NR70 died. As for me my T|T is still going strong and the T|T2 is too little an improvement to justify an upgrade. I am holding out for the T|T3 or possibly trhe rumoured T|C2 (with WiFi AND Bluetooth). But really 320x480 would be the bigger lure and I do need more Ram. Jim hasn't discovered the joys of Bluetooth yet ;) He says "I have never felt compelled to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars upgrading handhelds and cellphones to surf the Internet slowly on a small screen. ". Jim, Jim. Not just the surfing. Most of my Bluetooth activity involves sending and collecting SMSs from my Bluetooth capable phone (the cheap, battery efficient lightweight Ericsson T39) which remains in my pocket. Dialing from the T|T via Bluetooth to the phone and then picking up the call on the Bluetooth HBH-30 headset is the ultimate in geekiness.
I am reminded in this tropical part of the world, there's another famous Jim Thompson. Same moniker but quite a different character - his disappearance is still a mystery today. He was last seen in Cameron Highlands, a highland resort in my home country. But I digress.......

BluefishRx Prescription Writer



BlueFish Wireless Prescription writer sounds like a very good idea. I was fascinated that they have incorporated Biometric Signature Verification. I wonder how the Palm will standup to this in real life. Sending the order wirelessly to the pharmacy sounds real cool too.

DateToolz 1.0

DateToolz, written by yours truly has been released as freeware on Palmgear (and hopefully soon on Freewarepalm.com). For me, I just wanted a tool which I could easily use to schedule appointments for patients. I use Agendus every day but one thing it lacks is an easy way to say schedule an appointment 15 weeks or 100 days in advance. Imagine trying to pick out the date on the popup Date picker. Now with McPhling, I can swicth to DateToolz easily, select the date, hit the Schedule It button and paste the patient's Name. Then one more Tap adds the appointment complete with the [brackets] which links the appointment to the contact Agendus-style.

HaemOncRules in Palmgear

Haemonc Rules appears in Palmgear at last. Had alot of difficulty submitting the software as there seemd to be a bug in Palmgear's software submission mechanism. Even their Search engine seems to be buggy. Keying in Haemoncrules in the search gives rise to absolutely nothing. Something's not quite right hear Palmgear people......
HaemoncRules is a collection of algorithms for computing diagnostic criteria, prognosis and clinical decision making in Haematology-Oncology. The current version 1.0 has 14 modules. I have actually done three more so will be updating to version 1.1 in a week or two.

Got a headache?

MemoWare : Headache Diary keeps track of your headaches in HanDbase and MobileDB formats. Keeping track of your symptoms particularly with chronic disorders is a good idea so you can present your information accurately to your physician.