Knowledge in the palm of your hands: PDAs in the clinical setting

1
Knowledge in the palm of your hands PDAs in the
clinical setting

• Claire Honeybourne,
• Library Services Manager, University Hospitals of
  Leicester NHS Trust

http//www.le.ac.uk/li/lgh/library/palm.htm
2
Current situation
3
?Answer
4
Drs Companion

• BNF , MedCalc, Leicestershire Prescribing Guide,
  ICD 10 /DSM IV, EBM guidelines with links to
  Cochrane and other sources, eMedicines
  Companion,Drug interaction check, NICE
  guidelines, OPSC4, Oxford handbook of clinical
  medicine, Oxford handbook of clinical
  specialities, Oxford medical dictionary.

5
Feedback

• BNF used regularly to check doses, indications,
  side effects and interactions
• Anatomy used to teach colleagues
• Oxford handbooks were very handy and I really
  found these useful in answering basic questions
  in medicine especially.
• Calculate creatinine clearance for patients on
  the ward.
• Medical dictionary used occasionally and
  handbooks daily.
• BNF extremely useful for prescribing for pregnant
  women in clinic. Calculators were particularly
  useful e.g. BMI calculations in the maternal
  medicine clinic.

6
Feedback

• EBM guide provided evidence based diet therapy
  for high serum cholesterol levels.
• Very useful when teaching medical students, able
  to quickly check facts. Anatomy textbook helpful
  for inserting nerve block.
• Checking which orthopaedic patients satisfy the
  criteria for COXII inhibitors according to NICE.
• Emedicines compendium Very good for detailed
  enquiries that I would previously have had to
  refer to pharmacy e.g. off license use of drugs

7
What next

• To provide a handheld computer, with Drs
  Companion loaded, to each new Foundation Years
  doctor in Leicester starting in August 2004.

8
Play time

• Realone mobile player Seamless integration with
  the RealOne Player for PC to drag and drop mp3
  and RealAudio files to devices.
• Monopoly  www.handmark.com
• SimCity www.ateliersoftware.com
• Bejewelled www.astraware.com (for those that like
  tetris - Julia)
• Chess Tiger www.chesstiger.com
• Race fever www.digital-fiction.com two person
  game played via beaming.
• Plucker  http//dave.pluckerbooks.com81/ 
  Dickens, Austen and some PG Wodehouse and
  Virginia Woolf.

9
Where to Get More Information

• www.medschoolguide.co.uk/PDA.htm
• www.library.ualberta.ca/pdazone
• http//www.ils.unc.edu/caham/ebmtools/ebmtools.ht
  ml
• http//www.handheldsfordoctors.com/
• http//www.le.ac.uk/li/lgh/library/palm.htm