The Use of Handheld Computers in Academic Medicine Todd Burdette DMS ‘04

Medical Schools and PDAs, a Trend Schools That Require Palm OS handhelds for M3 and M4: – Wake Forest – University of S. Florida – University of S. Dakota – Harvard* – East Carolina University – UNC Chapel Hill *Either Palm or Pocket PC

Why Study Handheld Computers in Medicine? February, 2000: A survey at Mount Sinai dept. of Internal Medicine showed 60% attendings and 47% residents owned PDAs.

Students Use PDAs mostly as a reference tool Drug Reference: i.e. Epocrates qRx 2 nd year – mechanism of action 3 rd and 4 th years – dosing, adverse effects, interactions Clinical Knowledge: i.e. 5 minute clinical consult 2 nd year – Disease natural history, treatments, diagnosis etc. 3 rd and 4 th years – DDx, Assessment and Plan Medical Dictionary: i.e. Taber’s Medical Calculators: Database Documents: Shots Cardiac Risk

DMS Computing PDA Pilot Project Goal: Study the use of PDA reference tools by 2 nd year students to determine usefulness Details: Begin October, 2001 – 24 Palm OS PDAs (donated by:Palm Inc.) – 8 each with either 5MCC, Taber’s, or Merck (Provided by: Biomedical libraries) – Focus groups and surveys throughout the year to gather feedback – Recommendation to MEC April, 2002 – Hardware – Software