What's New

January 30, 2004

 
ePocrates Online Open House

If you like ePocrates Rx on your Palm, you may want to try the online version. For the entire month of February, you can have free access to the online version of ePocrates Rx. In addition to all the features of the handheld version, ePocrates Rx Online includes patient education information, pill pictures, medical equations, and clinical guidelines.
posted by Kent 10:08 PM | |

 
New Patient Tracking App

There are so many of these things now that surely you can find one you like, right? PatientWatch lets you record basic patient demographics and track clinical details, including history, examination, monitoring, investigations and medications. You can also set a password for confidentiality.


posted by Kent 6:34 PM | |

January 24, 2004

 
Happy 20th Birthday, Macintosh

Twenty years ago, on January 24, 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh. The machine revolutionized the computer industry and changed millions of lives. Fortunately, Palm has embraced the Mac from the beginning. If you're not a Mac user, click here to see what you're missing. ;-)


posted by Kent 4:37 PM | |

January 21, 2004

 
East Coast Blues Dish Out Mobile Rx

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Columbia, South Carolina and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of Newark, New Jersey, are giving their member physicians access to hand-held prescription software. Both initiatives were created to help improve patient safety and enhance the quality of care.

The payer organizations will offer their physicians access to PDA prescription software from AdvancePCS, an Irving, Texas-based health care improvement services vendor. The software is designed to enable physicians to write prescriptions and send them directly to retail and mail order pharmacies via a PDA running the Palm OS. The application also includes preferred drug lists and formulary information for the Blues plans and other payer organizations.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey will begin its electronic prescribing initiative this spring for physicians at Egg Harbor Township, N.J.-based AtlantiCare Health System. Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina will begin its initiative as a pilot program for a select group of physicians in its network.

Source: Mobile Health Data
posted by Kent 9:42 PM | |

 
N.Y. Docs Ramp Up PDA Software

Long-term care physicians in New York will be able to use hand-held electronic prescription software from Ramp Corp., thanks to an alliance with the Greater New York Health Facilities Association. The association will help the vendor implement the CareGiver software at long-term care facilities in New York, where it represents 80 health care facilities. The CareGiver application is designed to enable physicians to place orders for drugs, treatments and supplies from a PDA.

Source: Mobile Health Data
posted by Kent 9:38 PM | |

 
New Pharmacy Tools

Dwight Norris, RPh, a fellow NS Basic programmer, has created two applications that may be of interest to clinicians as well as pharmacists.

Heparin Calc, as the name implies, is a program for calculating heparin dosage. It is designed to calculate both the initial weight based dose and subsequent doses based on the aPTT. The program is highly customizable, it can be set up to conform with your institution's heparin dosing protocols. The download is a fully functional 45-day trial version.

Therapeutic Interchange Guide (TIG) is a database program used to create and store your pharmacy therapeutic interchanges on a Palm OS device. This is a free, fully functional program which does not expire.

Both applications may be downloaded here.
posted by Kent 2:31 PM | |

 
Continuing Medical Education on a PDA Studied

A study that will research how handhelds can be used as a new way of delivering targeted continuing medical education (CME) to physicians will be presented on Friday at the 29th Annual Conference of the Alliance for Continuing Medical Education.

Susan Brown Connelly, PharmD, of Advanced Concepts Institute, a research group of University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, will present the study. "Several members of the Advanced Concepts Institute and our collaborating organizations have designed an intervention that uses both managed care data and handheld/PDA technology to specifically target physicians who may be most interested in, and most likely to benefit from, CME around the diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis," said Dr. Connelly.

The study will use ePocrates handheld/PDA technology and its network of physician users. According to ePocrates, approximately 52% of its 130,000 U.S. physician users are also members of Aetna's provider network, a collaborator on the study.

Jeff Taylor, RPh, MS, Aetna Pharmacy Director, adds, "by analyzing our data, we can select physicians who are most likely to benefit by viewing the latest CME on the screening, diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis. In today's environment of information overload, we want to focus our educational information on those who will reap the most benefit."

Physicians selected from a data analysis by Aetna and who use ePocrates handheld software, will receive an offer to take a short 10-case initial assessment presented as a challenge via ePocrates DocAlert Messaging.

Based on the results of their initial assessment, physicians will either receive a partial CME credit for passing the initial assessment or be offered additional CME focused on the areas covered in the challenge. Participants who successfully complete the initial assessment will still be given the option of completing the additional activity.

Source: PDAStreet
posted by Kent 11:32 AM | |

January 20, 2004

 
MedMath Updated

Phillip Cheng has updated MedMath, his venerable medical calculator. MedMath ver. 2.0 includes:

• Added dosing calculator, PELD (Pediatric Endstage Liver Disease) score, Parkland Formula, Pediatric Maintenance Fluids.
  
• More robust display overflow detection; asterisks shown if numeric overflow.
  
• Answers cleared if invalid inputs and calculate button is pressed. Units independently configurable for height and weight.
  
• Undo/cut/copy/paste supported on calculation screen.
  
• Internal changes to increase efficiency while minimizing footprint.
  
• Minor interface changes for compliance with PalmSource UI guidelines.
  
• High resolution color icon added.
  
• Text added describing age range for Nunn and Gregg peak flow prediction formula (don't use it for children!)
  
• Recompiled using SDK 5.0r3 and pilrc 3.1.

MedMath was written by a physician for rapid calculation of common formulas in adult internal medicine, and features more than 30 formulas sorted by category, with selectable units and onscreen numeric keypad. As always, MedMath is freeware.
posted by Kent 9:07 AM | |

January 19, 2004

 
Diabetes Converter

I used to host a little freeware app that I wrote in NS Basic called "GlucoCalc", which simply converted between serum glucose and HgbA1C values. Then I lost the source code and couldn't update it, so I took it down. I still get requests for it from time to time.

Now, you can download Diabetes Converter, a new freeware app from PDA Consult that does pretty much the same thing that GlucoCalc did, except that it looks a lot nicer. ;-)


posted by Kent 5:11 PM | |

 
Handheld Computers For Doctors Gets Rave Reviews

The latest issues of the JAMIA (Journal of American Medical Informatics Association) and PDI (Practical Diabetes International) have published reviews of Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli's book "Handheld Computers For Doctors". Check out the reviews here:

JAMIA Review
PDI Review

Quotes from JAMIA include:

"The book is written in a very informal style that clinicians can easily read and understand quickly", and "Skeptics or late adopters of handheld computers who need a text to help motivate them to purchase a handheld computer will probably enjoy this book."

PDI's reviewer said:

"I would encourage all health care providers to read this book and make use of this fast-growing technology when managing patients."

Finally, the full list of reviews of the book is available here.
posted by Kent 4:44 PM | |

January 18, 2004

 
Secure Your PDA

In the current issue of the Journal of Informed Pharmacotherapy, Gwen Liu, BSc, and Robert M. Balen, B.Sc., Pharm.D. give us the first installment of a multipart article entitled "Securing Confidential Data On Your Personal Digital Assistant (PDA): Using the Security Options Built Into The Palm Operating System". Part II of this series will outline some strategies for enhancing PDA security by including data encryption and more rigorous data access control.
posted by Kent 3:34 PM | |

 
NCDMeister

Stop eating your lab charges! It's a sad reflection on the state of medicine today, but you really do need this.

MeisterMed's newest release, NCDMeister, is a comprehensive list of Medicare's National Coverage Determinations (the rules that say which ICD-9 codes need to be submitted with which laboratory test order if you actually want to get paid). NCDMeister can help you avoid denial of payments for lab tests that don't meet Medicare's definition of medical necessity.

I just ordered my copy. Thanks, Andrew! :-)


posted by Kent 12:01 PM | |

January 17, 2004

 
Healthy Living for the 21st Century

Carl Weber's free text gives many great examples on how to get started on healthy eating, regular physical fitness and details stress management for persons of all ages. The text includes information on many fad diets. Useful for physicians and their patients, including diabetics and those with coronary artery disease. Download Healthy Living for the 23st Century for iSilo or MobiPocket readers.
posted by Kent 10:54 PM | |

 
New Titles from Medical Wizards

The PDA version of the Tarascon Pediatric Emergency Pocketbook from Medical Wizards contains the full content of this extremely popular pocket reference. All information has been optimized for display in the PDA format, and a comprehensive index facilitates rapid navigation. A powerful bonus is the addition of integrated calculators throughout for drug doses and for the numerous clinical scales and scoring systems. The infectious disease section has been markedly expanded; users can quickly look up an infectious condition and view both treatment recommendations and the automatically calculated doses. This PDA version uniquely meshes advanced functionality with time-tested, trusted medical content.



Laboratory & Diagnostic Tests, based on Davis’s Comprehensive Handbook of Laboratory and Diagnostic Tests with Nursing Implications (1190 pages), is the ideal reference for medical/nursing students, physicians and nurses. This easy-to-consult product contains 398 monographs covering 664 tests including Alzheimer’s markers, cancer markers, expanded therapeutic drugs, and communicable diseases.


posted by Kent 10:57 AM | |

January 12, 2004

 
Duke Goes Mobile with PatientKeeper

Duke University Health System will implement software from Boston-based PatientKeeper Inc. to offer caregivers mobile access to clinical applications across its facilities. The Durham, N.C.-based delivery system plans to use the software to streamline access to its myriad clinical systems.

Clinicians at Duke University Hospital, Durham Regional Hospital, Raleigh (N.C.) Community Hospital and Duke University Affiliated Physicians will use PDAs from various vendors and platforms to access both homegrown and vendor-supported clinical applications via the software. The delivery system also will use PatientKeeper's software development kit to build an integrated data repository and other specialty clinical applications in the future, says Paul Debien, director for mobile computing at Duke University Health System.

Source: Mobile Health Data
posted by Kent 5:33 PM | |

January 10, 2004

 
Mobile Computing Primer for Docs

A newly released book from Sudbury, Mass.-based Jones and Bartlett Publishers offers advice for clinicians about using and buying PDAs, and related software. "The Medical Professional's Guide to Handheld Computing" also features instructions on how to use PDA-based clinical software including applications from ePocrates and Skyscape.

The book was written by Chris Helopoulos, a physician assistant and associate director of clinical education for the Barry University Physician Assistant Program, Miami. Helopoulos wrote the book based on his years of experience helping medical students use PDAs and related software in clinical care.

The book is mainly for medical students or clinicians that have never used a PDA. "Medical students should become competent on PDAs in school before they go out into a practice," he says.

Helopoulos also advises clinicians and medical students to purchase extra memory for their PDAs, because medical reference titles take up a lot of space on the mobile hardware.

The book is priced at $24.95, and is also available from Web-based book retailers, including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.


posted by Kent 11:16 AM | |

 
Care Plan Oversight Log for PDAs

Infingo has released CPO Log, an innovative program that helps primary care providers document care for home care and hospice patients, and easily generate bills using codes for Care Plan Oversight (CPO). CPO Log helps providers overcome the complexity of billing for CPO and receive fair compensation for the work they are already doing. Infingo also offers a separate ICD-9 coding application.


posted by Kent 9:28 AM | |

January 8, 2004

 
Students Score Med Apps on PDAs

The University of Louisville, KY has begun providing its medical and dental students access to a PDA-based drug reference application from ePocrates, Inc.. The University formed an agreement with ePocrates to offer its 900 medical and dental students access to the ePocrates RxPro hand-held clinical software, which consists of continually updated information on more than 2,900 drugs and 400 herbal medicines. It also includes a multiple drug interaction checking application.

Many of the University's students already were using the application before it was made part of their curriculum. Other schools, including Harvard Medical School, Florida State University College of Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Duke University School of Medicine also offer their students subscriptions to the RxPro application. Additionally, other schools and residency programs offer student discounts for the software.

So...if you're involved in a medical school or residency program, contact ePocrates to see if you can work out a deal! :-)

Source: Mobile Health Data
posted by Kent 7:07 PM | |

January 6, 2004

 
Study: 33% of Docs Use Mobile Tech

Approximately one-third of physicians are using some kind of mobile technology, according to a national study by The Pri-Med Institute. The Boston-based organization is the clinical education division of MC Communications LLC, a physician advocacy group.

The study, based on a survey conducted in August 2003, found that while primary care physicians tend to be gradual adopters of I.T. designed to enhance productivity and provide decision support, most plan to expand their I.T. budgets this year. The study also found that almost 75% of physicians consider themselves influential in the decision making process for purchasing I.T and related services for their practices.

Additionally, the study found that more than two-thirds of physicians are using clinical knowledge reference tools and automated billing software, while one-third are using dictation/transcription services, mobile technology and electronic medical records systems. But it also found that only one in five physicians use disease management or electronic prescribing systems.

Disease management applications for diabetes and hypertension, however, ranked high on physicians' wish lists, according to the survey. Other I.T. topics physicians found interesting include clinical information systems, new medical devices and extending PDA use to more health care functions. Fewer than one in five physicians expressed interest in electronic communication with patients, according to the survey.

For more information, go to www.mc-comm.com.

Source: Mobile Health Data
posted by Kent 6:27 PM | |

January 1, 2004

 
Shots 2004 Now Available

Shots 2004 for Palm OS is now available from The Group on Immunization Education of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine. Now in its fifth year, Shots 2004 has been updated with the new January-June, 2004 child and 2004 adult immunization recommendations, and now includes Smallpox information. The Pocket PC and Online versions should be available soon. As always, Shots 2004 is freeware.


posted by Kent 2:14 PM | |

Visit the Archives for previous news items.