PDA's for nurses... Anyone use them?

Nurses General Nursing

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hi all...i was looking into pda's and what they have to offer a nurse. i have seen them that have the drug guides, pdr's, and lots of other nursing helps built in. does anyone use these? are they allowed where you work? some of the programs out there for pda's and nursing are pretty cool.

Specializes in ICU, Tele, Dialysis.

thanks for the clarification! yes, I know them as palm pilots. Got worried there for a minute!

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Specializes in private duty/home health, med/surg.

My family got me a Palm Tungsten E & the Davis Drug guide for my graduation last month. The local Best Buy told my brother that most of their Palms are sold to nurses. I'm looking forward to not having to lug a drug guide with me anymore.

I'm dreaming of all the stuff I can load onto it once I buy a 1-GB Sandisk! I saw that they just came out with 4 GB memory card, but it is $449.99!!

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Memory is getting so cheap these days! I saw a 1GB SD card for $50! But you have to make sure your PDA can use that much memory....for example mine can only take up to a 512MB card. I currently have a 128MB and havent even used half of it and I have three nursing programs loaded on it.....so it goes a long way.

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Specializes in Rodeo Nursing (Neuro).

My Palm Tungsten E is acting up on me. Not sure if it's a hardware problem or a software one, but I was carrying it in my pocket and must have inadvertantly turned it on (there are ways of preventing that) and ran the battery clear dead. Thought I had it up and running, so I bought a hard case for it. Now I'm still having a few bugs.

Impoverished nursing student that I am, I'll probably buy another Tungsten E, so the hard case will fit, instead of trading up. The danged thing is so handy, though, that I don't want to go back to school without one I'm sure is working. Maybe I can use the other for a backup, or fix it and give it to someone. Drug Guide and Taber's are indispensible, Fast Facts and RNotes are very nice to have.

Next time around, all programs will go on a card, I'll be very cautious about downloading freeware or shareware, and this puppy will stay in the hard case! (Maybe I'll use the old one for games, music, and assorted crap.)

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Specializes in med/surg.

I have one - Oh, I just love the little thing. I have Pepid, Davis's Drug guide, LWW English/Spanish Med words & phrases, and Archimedes. I just added Tabers, Nursing Diseases and Disorders, Nurse's Manual of Lab and Disgnostic tests.

Non-nursing stuff - I have bejewelled, adobe palm pdf, Palm Reader, sol free solitaire, documents to go, pictures of my niece, sisters w/their DH, pets, myself and a klingon, etc and so forth.

I have a little bug with mine as well - the power button doesn't work anymore, but I can still use one of the other buttons on the front to turn it on. To avoid power problems I reccommend going to preferences, power and switching to auto-off after 30 secs.

Check out the palm one website, they have support forums for the different types of pdas including troubleshooting for problems with pdas.

http://www.palmone.com/us/community/myhandheld/tungsten-e/

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Didn't there used to be a sticky all about PDA's? I can't find it. I am a student with a dell axim pocket pc. I would love to go through that thread again if it still exists. Can anyone link me? Thanks,

Rebecca

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Specializes in er, pediatric er.

I am a senior in nursing school and work as a nurse extern. I have a HP 3100. I use mine all the time. I have drug books, five minute clinical consult, pediatrics suite, epocrates drug reference, ECG guide, and RN notes. My programs are very helpful. Almost everyone at my hospital has PDA's. I would recommend them to anyone. I am much more likely to look up something on it that I probably would not look up if I had to look through a book.

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i would really love to have one. where do you purchase these. i am from a small town and dont think they have anything like that. they just now have sat radio...lol. :rotfl:

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You can order them from palmone.com, Bestbuy, Officemax, etc. I believe Wal-mart and Sams Clubs may have a few. You can even get them brand new off of ebay. I really think it is best if you look at them first hand before buying one, though. Depending on what you will use it for, how much your budget is, etc., you need to make comparisons. Main thing, get as much memory as you can.

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website to get free drug refrence guide on the web for palm or pocket PC

http://www2.epocrates.com/products/rx/

also has great lab, dx, and nurses guide for sale.

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Specializes in Telemetry and ER.

Okay I just got my new Palm Pilot and all of these programs you all have I really want but they are so gosh darn expensive :imbar Could you advise the best place to get them?>?????? Thanks in advance :)

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