An internal study by MedStar Health has revealed that PDAs can help physicians better communicate with other caregivers. The Columbia, Md.-based integrated delivery system has enabled its physicians to use PDAs for medical references since 1998. In 2000, the provider began testing physician PDA use on a more interactive level.
The delivery system's Good Samaritan Hospital was plagued with unpredictable information transferred among physicians at the end of shift changes. To bring clarity to the information and the process, the Baltimore-based facility began offering PDA-based sign out forms for caregivers to complete when they end their shifts. By the end of the study phase, most physicians concluded they preferred to complete and receive the new sign out forms, said John Hong, M.D., program director of internal medicine residency at MedStar Health. Further, the PDA-based surveys often were more complete than the previous written forms, he added.
"Our hand-held electronic sign out system clearly improved the quality of information exchange among physicians," Hong said Feb. 25 at the 2004 HIMSS Conference & Exhibition in Orlando, Fla. He led the "PDA Healthcare: The Whole World in Your Palm" educational session. "Physicians found the PDA application to be useful, though it required them to enter a lot of information, which led to a few transcribing errors."
MedStar Health has since co-developed an application to enable the automatic transfer of patient chart data from its electronic medical records system--from Malvern, Pa.-based Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services Corp.--to physicians' PDAs. This, in turn, has greatly reduced the amount of data entry physicians must perform.
"We wanted to make using PDAs as easy as possible for our physicians," Hong added.
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