Doctors Use Handhelds to Save Lives
Doctors have been at the forefront of the handheld-revolution, using palmtops to hold the bulky reference works they need and even keeping track of patient data. Techniques that were once used by individual doctors are now becoming standards. Hospitals are now using handhelds to help ensure ensure smoother, more efficient patient care, such as streamlining post-operative patient-management, medication-monitoring and risk-assessment procedures.
The Pediatric International Heart Center at Miami Children's Hospital uses Palm powered handhelds to track the post-operative management of pediatric cardiac patients in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. Doctors and nurses who once used paper forms to collect patient data now use handheld devices to gather the information and then transmit it wirelessly over a network to the hospital's clinical outcomes database.
"Using the Palm OS based solution, doctors and nurse practitioners can now spend more time with their patients, rather than spending time filling out paper forms," said Jeffrey White, biomedical engineer and software developer, Miami Children's Hospital. "Progress notes and billing summaries that used to take several hours to write by hand are now completed in several minutes. In life-and-death situations, hospital staff have the information they need at their fingertips and can share it quickly as needed."
West Park Healthcare Centre in Toronto uses Symbol 1740 handheld to manage medication distribution at bedside and enhance the safety and security of drug administration to its patients. Nurses use handhelds to access patient profiles, review medication that needs to be administered, and scan bar codes on the medication labels. A warning appears on the handheld if the medication selected and scanned by the nurse is different from the medication ordered by the physician. Nurses also can use the handheld to scan the patient wristband to help ensure that the right medications are administered to the correct patient at the right time.
"What the Palm Powered devices provide is a way to monitor that the five 'Rs' of medication administration -- right drug, right dose, right time, right patient, right route -- are being followed," said a hospital spokesperson.
Doctors at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Ariz., use Palm handhelds to streamline heart-attack risk-assessment procedures. When patients enter the emergency room complaining of chest pain, doctors use their palmtops to access an evidence-based risk-assessment evaluation, recording answers to a series of patient questions. A handheld application provides a risk-stratification based on patient questions. The risk assessment is used to assist with the decision to admit patients to a Cardiac Care Unit vs. a short stay in the Chest Pain Unit.
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RE: ePocrates
RE: ePocrates
http://www.epocrates.com/support/generalfaqs/general_17.cfm
RE: ePocrates
It is one of the great illusions of the Palm.... VFS and external expansion storage....
Alas, one's definition of "killer app" is indeed subjective... and mission critical to the user's perspective.
Glad to know K2 supports expansion cards, now if they would only make more frequent updates... they have a killer user interface compared to ePocrates...
RE: ePocrates
Illusion? It's no illusion provided the developer supports it.
RE: ePocrates
RE: ePocrates
Sanford sucks!
No wonder the Sanford website makes such a big deal about stressing that there are no refunds!!
Don't say you weren't warned
RE: Sanford Sucks
Sanford is a dud!
RE: ePocrates
RE: ePocrates
RE: ePocrates
"Killer App"
RE: killer ap
RE:
so this begs the question...
Only for data retrieval so far
1. Information retrieval (texts, patient lab data, etc.)
2. Information entry
The Palm excels in information retrieval, although formating, diagrams, and appropriate content remain critical issues.
Information entry, however, is still very cumbersome at best. IBMs experiments with voice recognition could bridge that impasse.
RE: Only for data retrieval so far
PRD Modules
---------------------------------------
When you find yourself in the company of a halfling and an ill-tempered Dragon, remember, you do not have to outrun the Dragon...you just have to outrun the halfling.
RE: PRD Modules
RE: PRD Modules
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ePocrates
The Palm platform must outnumber PPC in the medical community by at least 10:1...