326 Canadian Family Physician • Le Médecin de famille canadien VOL 48: FEBRUARY • FÉVRIER 2002
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T
he Internet presents an expanse of opportunity for hand- held computer users. There is an abundance of medical information and software on the World Wide Web, and it is easy to get it onto your personal digital assistant (PDA).This segment of the market is volatile even by the informa- tion technology industry’s unpredictable standards, so the information provided here is subject to change.
Many software vendors will permit you to try their pro- grams before buying. The website www.skyscape.com pro- vides a variety of hand-held medical software with free evaluation versions. At the time of writing, Skyscape offered four drug programs, a Taber’s dictionary, and four medical references. After the evaluation period has expired, you lose access to the program, but you can then pay and regis- ter to receive a code to unlock it again. Purchase allows registered users to get free updates for a year (typically three or four revisions are made annually). Discounts are offered for updates after that period. Products for both Palm OS and Windows CE devices are provided.
The website www.infopoems.com provides one of the best bargains on the Web. At the time of writing, they had an ongoing free download of InfoRules. This modest (174-KB) set of evidence-based tools is an excellent clinical application for PDAs. Based on the concept of POEMs or “patient-ori- ented evidence that matters,” the program provides guid- ance for dozens of situations such as making diagnoses (eg, likelihood that pneumonia is present); clinical decisions (eg, the Ottawa Ankle, Foot and Knee rules); and several risk calculators, such as probability of developing breast cancer.
This program can be updated as new rules are added. The site also sells a larger package, the InfoRetriever program, which is currently available for personal computers and Pocket PC devices. A sister site www.medicalinforetriever.com/
contains the same information. Select the Journal of Family Practice Promotional Offer at either of these sites to down- load InfoRules or to try out InfoRetriever.
The website www.PdaMD.com is an excellent place for new and experienced Palm users. It offers news, reviews, personal opinion, a how-to section, case studies, guides on purchasing, discussion groups, and products for sale.
Student issues are given good coverage. It is a good place to obtain products; a review of a program typically has links to purchase or download a trial version. You can also sub- scribe to an e-mail newsletter. Logging in is required to access some material at this site. This organization is also involved with www.healthypalmpilot.com. This site provides applications on a variety of medical topics. Many are free,
but some require you to have a reader application(such as HanDBase) installed. You can see how many times a given program has been downloaded. Users can rate the software, and the reviews are posted to read.
The American Academy of Family Physicians has a small but helpful site (www.aafp.org/fpnet/x433.html). It includes a lot of information useful to newcomers, such as why get a PDA, how to buy one, and a frequently asked question list. There is also information of use to experi- enced users, such as news briefs and “how to” articles.
Downloads and articles on clinical and practice manage- ment topics are available. Both Palm OS and Pocket PC devices are covered.
The on-line medical bookstore www.collectivemed.com/ has a lot of PDA software for Palm and Windows CE devices.
A webring is an assortment of websites devoted to a similar topic with links to one another; a type of virtual community. Several are devoted to medical use of Palm OS PDAs. Several of these sites are part of The Medical Piloteer webring. It can be accessed from www.medicalpiloteer.com/ or by going to the hub at nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=medpilot&id=1&hub. This col- lection was formed in 1999 and had 66 member sites at the time of writing. A variety of material ranges from personal narratives to commercial sites. Information is of interest to students as well as practising physicians. The collection has Canadian, German, Spanish, and Swedish content and includes some of the whimsical and recreational programs so relished by many PDA users.
A Palm Medical Canadian webring (Anneau Palm Médical Canada) is run by a Quebec city family physician and a Charlottetown emergency physician. It currently has nine member sites, although the sites do not always link to one another in true webring fashion, and some links are outdated. It can be accessed from barmacooper.com/
drcooper.palm/indexms.html.
There is also Le cercle du Palm francophone at nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=palmfra&list.
The commercial site www.handheldmed.com is for both Palm and Windows CE devices. It has a wealth of clinical and practice management software, including “5 Minute Clinical Consult” and “Patient Tracker,” a mobile electronic charting application.
The site www.avantgo.com/channels provides more than two dozen sources of information for health professionals.
The idea is simple and potentially useful: you select your areas of interest and receive updates on them each time you
Medical websites for users of hand-held computers
Stewart Cameron, MD
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synchronize your PDA. It encompasses channels on neurology, cardiology, and family medicine, including American Family Physician and, more recently, the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
In practice, it is a bit of a hit-or-miss experience. Some channels that look promising provide little more than advertisements for products and ser- vices. Others are not regularly updated.
Signing on to AvantGo requires regis- tration and download of a 2.5-MB file.
The website guides you through the installation process, which takes about 15 minutes with a high-speed connec- tion. Another similar service is Mdirect from www.Medscape.com.
Dr Cameron is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS.
