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Performance of health status measures with a pen based personal digital assistant.

BACKGROUND: Increasing use of self reported health status in clinical practice and research, as well as patient appreciation of monitoring fluctuations of health over time, suggest a need for more frequent collection of data. Electronic use of health status measures in the follow up of patients is a possible way to achieve this. OBJECTIVE: To compare self reported health status measures in a personal digital assistant (PDA) version and a paper/pencil version for test-retest reliability, agreement between scores, and feasibility. METHODS: 30 patients with stable rheumatoid arthritis (mean age 61.6 years, range 49.8 to 70.0; mean disease duration, 16.7 years; 63% female; 67% rheumatoid factor positive; 46.6% on disease modifying antirheumatic drugs) completed self reported health status measures (pain, fatigue, and global health on visual analogue scales (VAS), rheumatoid arthritis disease activity index, modified health assessment questionnaire, SF-36) in a conventional paper based questionnaire version and on a PDA (HP iPAQ, model h5450). Completion was repeated after five to seven days. RESULTS: Test-retest reliability was similar, as evaluated by the Bland-Altman approach, the coefficient of variation, and intraclass correlation coefficients. The scores showed acceptable agreement, but with a slight tendency to higher scores on VAS with the PDA than the paper/pencil version. No significant differences were seen for measures of feasibility (time to complete, satisfaction score), but 65.5% preferred PDA, 20.7% preferred paper, and 13.8% had no preference. CONCLUSIONS: The clinimetric performance of paper/pencil versions of self reported health status measures was similar to an electronic version, using an inexpensive PDA.

Aged↗

Digital photography.

OBJECTIVE: The emergence of a new generation of "point-and-shoot" digital cameras offers doctors a compact, portable and user-friendly solution to the recording of highly detailed digital photographs and video images. This work highlights the use of such technology, and provides information for those who wish to record, store and display their own medical images. METHODS: Over a 3-month period, a digital camera was carried by a doctor in a busy, adult emergency department and used to record a range of clinical images that were subsequently transferred to a computer database. RESULTS: In total, 493 digital images were recorded, of which 428 were photographs and 65 were video clips. These were successfully used for teaching purposes, publications and patient records. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the importance of informed consent, the selection of a suitable package of digital technology and the role of basic photographic technique in developing a successful digital database in a busy clinical environment.

Computers, Handheld↗

Informatics in Radiology (infoRAD): mobile wireless DICOM server system and PDA with high-resolution display: feasibility of group work for radiologists.

A novel mobile system has been developed for use by radiologists in managing Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) image data. The system consists of a mobile DICOM server (MDS) and personal digital assistants (PDAs), including a Linux PDA with a video graphics array (VGA) display (307,200 pixels, 3.7 inches). The MDS weighs 410 g, has a 60-GB hard disk drive and a built-in wireless local area network (LAN) access point, and supports a DICOM server (Central Test Node). The Linux-based MDS can be accessed with personal computers (PCs) and PDAs by means of a wireless or wired LAN, and client-server communications can be established at any time. DICOM images can be displayed by using any PDA or PC by means of a Web browser. Simultaneous access to the MDS is possible for multiple authenticated users. With most PDAs, image compression is necessary for complete display of DICOM images; however, the VGA screen can display a 512 x 512-pixel DICOM image almost in its entirety. This wireless system allows efficient management of heavy loads of lossless DICOM image data and will be useful for collaborative work by radiologists in education, conferences, and research.

Computers, Handheld↗

Informatics in radiology (infoRAD): survey of personal digital assistant use in radiology.

There has been widespread adoption of personal digital assistants (PDAs) within medicine in recent years. However, information on the prevalence and usage of these devices among radiologists is limited. A survey was designed and mailed to randomly selected members of the Radiological Society of North America to determine the percentage of PDA users, their use patterns, and the types of applications that they would like to see in the future. The use patterns of attending radiologists were compared with those of trainees (residents and fellows). Overall usage was also compared with the relevant findings in two surveys of internal medicine users. It was found that slightly less than one-half of respondents used PDAs on a daily basis, a finding that was comparable to that in the internal medicine surveys. However, less than one-quarter of PDA users had radiology-specific applications installed on their devices, whereas a greater percentage of internal medicine users had software such as drug databases and clinical references on their PDAs. Radiology trainees had a higher rate of both PDA ownership and radiology application usage than did attending radiologists. It is likely that, as PDA hardware becomes more powerful, with higher display resolution, better wireless networking capabilities, and greater memory capacity, PDA ownership as well as radiology application usage will increase.

Computers, Handheld↗

[Clinical and pharmacological databases for personal digital assistants].

Personal digital assistants (PDAs) are part of the new technologies applied to medicine, which could improve both access to and storage of distinct databases. The present article reviews some general technical features, as well as the utility of these devices for consulting specific pediatric, clinical and pharmacological databases. A search was performed in Medline (1999 to 2004) and of web pages that described the use of PDAs and a total of 46 useful applications were identified, including pediatric diagnostic and treatment guidelines, databases of diagnostic procedures, guidelines for antibiotic therapy in the pediatric and adult populations, databases to establish the diagnosis and treatment of patients in emergency and intensive care medicine, catalogues of general drugs with complete pharmacological data (indications, doses, adverse effects, interactions, toxicology, pregnancy, lactation), specific databases of neonatology, otorhinolaryngology and pediatric surgery, and medical calculator software. Each reference details the contents, source of the reference information, memory requirements, operating system, cost, web page for downloads and whether there is a test version. There is a wide variety of pediatrics software for PDAs. Once the quality of these databases has been assessed, each user should evaluate which application will be most useful depending on his or her needs.

Computers, Handheld↗

Personal digital assistants in psychiatric education.

OBJECTIVE: This article describes the various administrative and clinical applications for PDA use in psychiatric care and review the process for implementation in an academic medical center. METHOD: The authors reviewed the psychiatric literature and tested various hardware and software products. RESULTS: The literature describes various uses of the PDA as a reference tool, in clinical care, and in training documentation. CONCLUSIONS: The PDA is capable of numerous vital roles in medical education.

Computers↗

Reducing errors in discharge medication lists by using personal digital assistants.

This study examined whether the number of errors in discharge medication lists at a psychiatric hospital would decrease when the practice of transcribing the lists by hand from physicians' discharge orders was replaced by the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) to create and directly print out such lists. In a four-month period before the use of PDAs was introduced, 20 of the 110 hand-transcribed lists (22 percent) contained errors. In the four-month period after the use of PDAs was implemented, seven of the 90 PDA-generated lists (8 percent) contained errors. Use of a PDA may be helpful in providing safer patient care.

Computers, Handheld↗

Sources of situational variation in ethnic identity and psychological well-being: a Palm Pilot study of Chinese American students.

Experience sampling reports collected randomly six times a day for 1 week examined the association between context, ethnic salience, psychological well-being, and stable ethnic centrality and ethnic private regard among Chinese American university students (N = 62). At the level of the situation, ethnic composition, family, and language were associated with higher ethnic salience. Stable ethnic centrality moderated the association between ethnic salience and family where higher centrality was related to stronger ethnic salience when students were with family. At the situation level, ethnic salience was associated with fewer depressive symptoms and increased positive mood. Stable ethnic private regard moderated this association where higher private regard was related to fewer depressive symptoms and higher levels of positive mood when ethnicity was salient.

Adaptation, Psychological↗