Handheld Computing in Medicine

1
Handheld Computing in Medicine

• What works today
• Nilay Shah, MD
• American College of Surgeons
• 88th Annual Clinical Congress
• October 8, 2002

2
Worldwide Handheld Sales

• Nearly 10 million PDAs sold in the last year
• Palm OS - 50
• Pocket PC - 28
• Other (proprietary OS) - 20

Source Dataquest, a member of The Gartner Group,
July 2002
3
Medical Use of PDAs

• Presence in healthcare on a steep rise
• Current major uses include
• Peripheral brain
• Patient tracking
• Reduce pharmacy errors

4
Hardware

• Palm and Pocket PC Handhelds
• Add-on Memory Cards
• Integrated phones
• Wireless add-ons
• Keyboards

5
Some Palm OS Machines
Acer s60
Sony NX70v
Palm m515
6
Some Pocket PC OS Machines
Viewsonic v35
Toshiba e740
Razor Zayo a600
7
Pocket PC OS Machines
Compaq iPaq
8
Flash Memory Cards
Memory Type Size (mm) Price/MB Compact
Flash 43 x 36 x 5 0.43 Memory Stick
21 x 50 x 3 0.53 Secure Digital 23
x 33 x 2 0.84 MMC 23 x
33 x 1.5 0.73
Source PC World Magazine, May 2002
9
Phone/PDA Devices
Toshiba 2032
Treo 300
T-Mobile PPC
10
Wireless Networking

• 802.11b - aka Wi-Fi
• always-on connectivity
• Longer range
• Starbucks, etc.

• Bluetooth
• Device-to-device
• Shorter range
• secure

11
Keyboards
12
Software

• Peripheral Brain - i.e. Reference Software
• Text books
• Drug References
• Medical Calculators
• Patient Tracking
• Pharmacy/Formulary Software

13
Reference Texts
14
Reference Texts
15
Drug Reference Software

• Extremely popular use of handhelds
• E.g. ePocrates, PDR, A2Zdrugs
• Need frequent updating
• ?Tracking of our use by Pharma

16
Drug Reference Software
17
Drug Reference Software
18
Medical Calculators

• Allow more accurate dosing based on disease
• Diagnostic Aid (e.g. Fractional excretion of
  Na for acute renal failure)
• Risk stratification
• (e.g. Ransons Criteria)

19
Formulary Software

• Reduce errors
• Whats on insurance formulary
• Saves time
• Drug history tracking

20
Formulary Software
21
ICD-9 Coding Software
22
Further Uses

• Integrated medical systems (cross platform)
• Continuing Medical Education

23
Miscellaneous Software
24
Miscellaneous Software
25
Useful Links

• www.pocketpc.com
• www.palm.com
• www.infosync.no
• www.medicalpocketpc.com
• www.skyscape.com

26
Thanks to

• American College of Surgeons
• Palm Microsoft
• Margi Systems
• Countless developers
• Dr. Muhammad Khan
• My patients