Hand held computers (PDA) in OR

Palm versus Windows:

This really comes down to personal preference. No one OS is better than the other. One thing to note however, PALM is pulling out of the PDA business and is focusing on the Treo smart phones. The Palm T/X and Life Drive will likely be the last dedicated PDA's that Palm will produce. In addition, Dell has pulled out of the PDA making business as well. The Dell Axim series of PDA's are no longer in production.

I suspect we will see significant changes over the next decade regarding the PDA concept. The PDA as we know it will fade away and we will see proliferation of smart phones that have advanced capabilities and pocket sized computers that run the same software used on your home computer. Perhaps VPN's with your home computer will become popular. We can allready buy pocket computers that run Windows software and have processor speeds that are starting to rival current laptops.

Current medical PDA programs are quite diverse and most can be downloaded to work on both types of operating systems.

Epocrates is a free mobile medication reference. It has a pretty extensive data base, allows for multi medication side effects check, and has a few free calculator/conversion and mobile CME tools.

Medical Wizards produces a large number of programs that can be customized to your specialty.

Skyscape also produces software that can be customized based on specialty. In addition, many Skyscape programs will work with the newer Windows Mobile 5.0 and soon to be 6.0 devices. (Samsung Blackjack, Motorola Q, etc) Remember, the Windows Mobile OS on these devices is much different from the Windows OS found on your PDA type devices. Epocrates can also work on the mobile devices.

ResQshop is an excellent critical care resource that allows you to perform many advanced calculations. It can be a little confusing to navigate because of the many references and calculators that you can access however.

These seem to be some of the big ones. Honestly, the decision is yours. You should be happy regardless of the device you choose.

I LOVE my palm Treo phone. It is nice that your phone and palm are in one and you don't have to worry about 2 devices. There is a great program I bought that is called Anesthesia Central. It has all stuff about the surgeries, complications, Davis Drug guide, and some other stuff included. It is nice because you can get online access as well, so for careplans it is so nice to just copy and paste instead of having to retype it all.