Handhelds In Medicine

Have you ever wanted to calculate the predicted peak flow for one of your asthmatic patients without spending valuable minutes searching for that confounded little slide rule gizmo? Wouldn’t it be great if you could somehow remember all Mrs. Jones’ medications when the nursing home calls to see if it’s OK to treat her acutely elevated blood pressure with some atenolol? Handheld computers are emerging as the stethoscopes of the twenty-first century, and no clinician should be without this essential tool. These small, easy-to-use devices are now powerful enough to help clinicians manage information and make medical decisions at the point of care. This comprehensive how-to guide targets all levels of handheld computer users, from novices to experts, and demonstrates how to make the most of handheld computers in any medical practice. Designed with easy-to-understand, hands-on exercises for each new skill presented, this book begins with choosing a handheld and "getting to know" your new device. It then progresses through downloading and installing software, using charge capture and e-prescription programs, Internet and evidence-based resources for your device, designing and programming your own programs, and going wireless. Written by three experienced family medicine clinicians, Handhelds in Medicine is designed to improve every day practice for any busy health professional. There are chapters written for and by nearly every health professional, including nurses, physician assistants and speech pathologists. Reviews of handheld devices and websites will be kept current at www.handheldsinmedicine.com

This is the first book to address the uses of handheld computers within clinical practice and considers the many different possible applications of handheld computers in a medical environment. The book champions the idea that handheld computers have a significant role to play in the future of clinical practice. It shows why and how these devices can help reduce paperwork, and how to use the technology without waiting for the IT department's latest expensive, complicated and overdue solution. The book is in three sections: Explains that handhelds, far from futuristic gadgets, are today's technology benefiting clinicians around the world. The ten chapters guide the user through all possible applications of these machines. Looks at three teams that put the handhelds to different clinical uses. Explains the tools and techniques that are useful in introducing the technology to a group. If you work in hospital or community medicine, you can take advantage of technology that is affordable, powerful, easy and effective. Handheld computers can be used for education, administration and clinical practice, and in association with colleagues to support communication and teamwork.

A comprehensive guide to choosing, buying and using a PDA in the clinical health-care setting.

Handheld computers, or PDAs, are computers small enough to hold in your hand or fit into your pocket. Smartphones are PDAs which also allow the user to make and receive phone calls. For doctors, PDAs are possibly the most clinically appropriate of all the computer devices created. This is an essential guide for doctors wishing to maximise the potential of their PDA or smartphones and is the only book available to address the specific needs of doctors in relation to PDAs and smartphones. The Doctor's PDA & Smartphone Handbook is a step by step guide which introduces readers to the basics of PDAs. Comprehensive in its approach and easily accessible to those with no technical knowledge, the first few chapters demonstrate how the devices are used and how effective they can be in day-to-day clinical care and in training activities. Communication and sharing data and clinical information is enhanced if the full team is equipped with PDAs, and later chapters discuss more advanced uses and issues that should be considered if planning to equip the whole team. The text is accompanied by invaluable teaching videos and vignettes illustrating how teaching points covered in each chapter can be applied to realistic scenarios.

Truly personal handheld and wearable technologies should be small and unobtrusive and allow access to information and computing most of the time and in most circumstance. Complimentary, environment-based technologies make artifacts of our surrounding world computationally accessible and facilitate use of everyday environments as a ubiquitous computing interface. The International Symposium on Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing, held for the first time in September 1999, was initiated to investigate links and synergies in these developments, and to relate advances in personal technologies to those in environment-based technologies. The HUC 99 Symposium was organised by the University of Karlsruhe, in particular by the Telecooperation Office (TecO) of the Institute for Telematics, in close collaboration with ZKM Karlsruhe, which generously hosted the event in its truly inspiring Center for Arts and Media Technology. The symposium was supported by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and the German Computer Society (Gesellschaft f r Informatik, GI) and held in cooperation with a number of special interest groups of these scientific societies. HUC 99 attracted a large number of paper submissions, from which the international programme committee selected 23 high-quality contributions for presentation at the symposium and for inclusion in these proceedings. In addition, posters were solicited to provide an outlet for novel ideas and late-breaking results; selected posters are also included with these proceedings. The technical programme was further complemented by four invited keynote addresses, and two panel sessions.