Technology Best 3 Med PDA programs?

[somnolent]

Quick comparison question...My school provides us with a subscription for epocrates essentials which includes a diagnostic suite along with the drugs and calculator, etc. I've heard good things about UpToDate, though, so I guess I'm wondering if anyone had some thoughts comparing the two. Is essentials good enough to go without the UpToDate. It's kinda expensive, even with the student discount so I don't want to pony up the cash and then realize that my epocrates is "good enough"

Thanks.

Any ideas about this?

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[Thievery Corp.]

I've done some searches here, but not finding too much on PEPID clinical rotations (although tons on their ED version), I was curious if anyone has used it, liked it, etc. Thanks.

 

[blueberry]

thanks everyone for the great tips. I was wondering if anyone else had trouble installing the john hopkins abx guide on their palm. I kept having problems saying that the guide is not fully installed and I should sync again. e-mailed tech support but it didn't help. I'm sure I have enough memory (new palm with >100 MB free) and I'm able to hotsync and install all other programs so those are not the issues....any tech savvy guys out there? =)

 

[whournameiz]

can someone please explain this to me. Do all of these programs require a palm database or microsoft? I thought I needed a palm pda for the software to work but the pda recommended by my school is a microsoft base system....should i just find a palm one?

 

[Pontifex Maximus]

can someone please explain this to me. Do all of these programs require a palm database or microsoft? I thought I needed a palm pda for the software to work but the pda recommended by my school is a microsoft base system....should i just find a palm one?

They vary. Not all recommended here are Palm or Windows Mobile. Some are cross platform, like Epocrates. Generally it doesn't matter what you use, you'll find something for it.

 

[whournameiz]

well i can get the blackjack or treo 680 for free and they are on diff operating systems so im not sure which to go with

 

[blueberry]

well i can get the blackjack or treo 680 for free and they are on diff operating systems so im not sure which to go with

well I would recommend that you check with your school or hospital (wherever you are working). some schools have some specific software and those will only run on a specific operating system.

In terms of the specific software recommended in this thread, just go to those websites and check them out for yourself. most of them are available for both palms and windows mobile (with a few exceptions). Traditionally, more software is available for palm since it's been around for longer, but this is slowly changing. pick the system that suits your needs (cost, amount of memory available, etc)

 

[mward04]

I just started using PEPID ED and I like it. Not the best navigation but it works. Very pricey though.

I've done some searches here, but not finding too much on PEPID clinical rotations (although tons on their ED version), I was curious if anyone has used it, liked it, etc. Thanks.

 

[BlondeCookie]

I've done some searches here, but not finding too much on PEPID clinical rotations (although tons on their ED version), I was curious if anyone has used it, liked it, etc. Thanks.

I downloaded the trial version of Pepid's Clinical Rotation Companion (Pepid CRC) and had a similar experience to the user above. Good info, but bad interface. However, I disliked the interface so much that I decided not to buy the program after my free trial period was up. It was a pain uninstalling Pepid from my comp & PDA, but I finally am rid of the ugly interface beast. The Pepid CRC included their drug database and, to be fair, it is has some other useful features that I liked using. For example, the drug interactions tool was quite helpful.

The big turnoff for me was the interface. Pepid insists on putting up their own Pepid keyboard in the interface of the drug & disease index. If you have a PDA smartphone with a keyboard already built into the device you just can't get the Pepid keyboard to disappear. If you have a standard PDA, for example I use a Palm TX, you have both the PDA on-screen keyboard AND the Pepid keyboard displayed at the same time. This redundancy takes up a huge amount of screen space whether you use a smartphone or a standard PDA. Think about it. Who wants to have two keyboards take up all that space when you only use one, and sometimes none at all? You look at Pepid's website and the products look fabulous. Even the screenshots are A+. But, the screenshots don't show this dual keyboard redundancy issue. Then, you download it and get frustrated trying to get rid of, at least, the one Pepid keyboard so you don't have two keyboards on there. And you can't.

I showed my friends this and they all agreed. That was a dealbreaker and after the trial period, I deleted Pepid from my comp & PDA. Sorry Pepid.

 

[mward04]

Since you all seem like you use Palm PDA programs fairly regularly, I'd love to get your feedback on a program I'm currently developing because I'm building this program essentially for you. It's called EM Rules and it pretty much picks up where Med Rules left off several years ago. It's focused on Emergency Medicine and Critical Care but still has a lot of features other services would like. I am going to give this away for free and would love any feedback people have to make this better. Whether you think the navigation sucks, or there are errors or you want to add a calculation, score, decision rule etc, I'd love to hear from you. You can download it at: www.handhelddoc.com

Thanks in advance for your help!
Mike

 

[Thievery Corp.]

I showed my friends this and they all agreed. That was a dealbreaker and after the trial period, I deleted Pepid from my comp & PDA. Sorry Pepid.

Thanks for the truly informative post.

 

[KidAtHeart]

In case anyone is interested, here are a few sites that has links to all sorts of programs:

http://docmd.com/pdasoftware/

http://pbrain.hypermart.net/medapps.html

Not all are free (unfortunately), but lots of helpful stuff.

 

[Kluver Bucy]

Here's a list of medical PDA applications that people are using. Any more to add to the list? I'd like to get quantitative and list them all in a poll if the poll will support that many entries.

iSilo
Skyscape 5-minute clinical consult
Skyscape 5-minute anything else (peds, etc.)
Skyscape DrDrugs
Epocrates free edition
Epocrates paid
Medcalc
Med Dictionary such as Stedman's, Dorland's, or Tabers
Adobe Reader for PDA
PEPID
UpToDate
Adobe Reader for PDA
Archimedes
DrDrugs
Lexidrugs or Lexi Complete
PIER
Merck Manual
Johns Hopkins Antibiotics guide
Outline of clinical medicine (OCM)
A2ZDrugs
Washington Manual
Clinical Pediatrics
Shots

 

[DavidZhang]

UpToDate has a Palm OS version now.

thanks.