Gadgets for doctors
Gadgets are part and parcel of today's world. Without any hesitation I can say doctors are the one who started exploring these technologies. In 90's we had only palm handheld (PDA) which was useful for doctors and it was trend to have one. It was user friendly, a good organizer (to keep up with the meetings and appointments) and had pharmacopoeia from epocrates. The pharmacopoeia on handhelds helped many doctors mainly for glancing dosage and adverse effects of a drug.
Then the smartphone (cellular phone plus PDA) era was started by blackberry and palm treo. Blackberry technology was quite different from palm devices. blackberry was mainly for instant email service ( push mail technology) and a manageable organizer. But blackberry lacked the technology of pharmacopoeia functions from epocrates or similar program. The palm treo, supported palm handheld technology and cellular phone technology. One more new technology was pocket PC with windows operating system (OS). Not to forget blackberry device and palm device were running on their own OS that is blackberry OS and palm OS. All three major players had Internet browsing facility.
By now epocrates have started providing CME, lab values, dosage calculator on palm treo and pocket PC. The devices from all the three brands had different technology and basic functions. Palm was preferred by doctors for its organizer and pharmacopoeia capability. The business people went for blackberry for it push mail technology. No manufactures tried to capture others market in real sense.
Today in 2008, the competition is cut throat. There are many new players, especially Apple with their Iphone. Even though technology is different, functionally all devices are quite similar. Palm in addition to their regular feature they have windows OS based smartphone, instant email facility, and a good computing software like office tools ( word, PPT and excel ). Blackberry, now supports epocrates or similar program but I am not happy with its computing capability. Finally, the trendy handset, Iphone from Apple have most of the above discussed capability with touch screen and excellent entertainment software programs. These days all higher end handset comes with at least basic entertainment programs (MP3 and video player ).
Today, I find choosing handset very easy. You can go for any brand or OS but make sure it supports Internet, e-books, epocrates or similar programs, instant email ( preferably push mail ), and have a QWERTY key buttons. Click on the following links for more information on the devices and software programs.
Medical use of handheld or smartphone devices: to access pharmacopoeias, medical e-books, patient tracking, manage medical records,electronic prescribing, and many other uses. Even it can be synchronized with hospital and home PC using Internet.