How the College is helping physicians use PDAs
Products include handheld versions of popular drug databases and new Annual Session courses
Copyright © 2002 by the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine.
By Jason van Steenburgh
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From electronic versions of best-selling books to new Annual Session courses, the College is creating many new resources for physicians who use personal digital assistants (PDAs). Here's a look at College products currently available for physicians using handheld computers, as well as new products that are in the works.
Information and product discounts
The College has introduced its PDA Portal, an online resource that lists ACP-ASIM products already available for handheld computer users.
The PDA Portal features a handheld version of the popular book, "Drug Prescribing in Renal Failure," for Palm-based handhelds. The College's PDA Portal also features short documents and tools for Palm devices on recognizing and dealing with bioterrorism agents and threats, including a decision support tool to diagnose smallpox and diagnose and treat anthrax.
Other PDA Portal bioterrorism resources include "quick facts" documents on plague, tularemia, hemorrhagic fever, smallpox and anthrax. (For physicians who need special "reader" software to use the book, the PDA Portal gives instructions on how to download a copy.)
The PDA Portal also features drug databases that work with Palm-based devices. The site's clinical references section includes popular resources like "Commonly Used ICD-9 Codes: 2002 Edition," gynecology alerts, the MKSAP 12 Normal Lab Values feature and guidelines from the American Diabetes Association.
And through a new agreement between pdaMD.com and the College, you can use the PDA Portal and your College membership to get a 5% discount on a wide range of handheld devices and programs.
To take advantage of the ACP-ASIM discount, visit the PDA Portal or go to http://acp.pdaorder.com. You'll need your College member number to be eligible for the discount.
Coming soon
The College is working on several new products for PDA users. They include:
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Annals Reader. This Palm-based product will allow users to download the latest issues of Annals of Internal Medicine to their PDA, as well as archive issues and bookmark favorite articles. The new product will also include decision support tool applications with certain Annals issues to help readers put Annals content into their practice. The product should be available in 2003.
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Clinical guidelines. The College will be publishing decision support tools from clinical guidelines that are in the public domain. These tools will be available as free-standing applications for both Palm- and Pocket PC-based PDAs.
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PIER. Portions of the Physicians' Information and Education Resource (PIER) will be available for Palm- and Pocket PC-based PDAs next year, including all the action-oriented clinical guidance that you expect from a point-of-care tool. PIER content will also be available on the TouchWorks electronic medical records product from Allscripts Healthcare Solutions by the end of this year.
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MKSAP. While the new MKSAP 12 Update on CD-ROM already features bioterrorism tools for Palm-based PDAs, future editions of the College's popular self-assessment tool will include a companion PDA application (or collection of applications) including new support tools and calculators.
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Annual Session courses. Annual Session 2003 will offer several new PDA courses designed for novices and advanced users. One pre-Session course, "Integrating PDAs Into Your Medical Practice," will examine the pros and cons of different PDA operating systems and popular devices. The course will also identify useful medical software.
At the next Annual Session, the college will offer several new courses on palmtop computing for physicians. A session from this year's meeting gives internists tips on using PDAs.
Two courses for beginners, one for the Palm operating system and one for the Pocket PC operating system, will give attendees hands-on PDA experience. Annual Session will also offer advanced courses for physicians who use Palm-based devices and Pocket PC devices, while two advanced user courses will teach attendees how to create custom PDA applications and link those applications to office systems.
Two Learning Center sessions at next year's meeting will focus on how to e-prescribe using handheld computers. Another session, BeamFest 2003, will bring users together to exchange software and databases.
Finally, next year's Annual Session will feature "beaming stations" where PDA users can download the Annual Session Program and other files onto their handheld computers free of charge.
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