|
|
Action | PDA | Desktop |
Enter Dental Appointment into PDA | ||
Synchronize to copy to desktop | ||
Enter Teacher appointment at desk | ||
Synchronize to copy to PDA | ||
Add Birthday to Desktop | ||
Remove dentist appointment from PDA | ||
Comment:Notice that the calendar discrepancy before synch’ing is the same for the Dentist appt as for the Teacher Conference, but the OS could tell that you wanted to copy the ADDITION of Birthday to the handheld, and copy the DELETION of the dentist to the desktop. |
||
Synchronize to copy both event AND deletion |
If you don’t yet own a Palm device, the choices can be overwhelming (but much less than it used to be!).
There used to be many manufacturers of PalmOS devices, but now there’s just a few. In fact, Palm makes all the "pure" PDA ones, and Garmin combines them with a UPS, and Treo makes combination phones (used to be HandSpring).
For the ones that are comingled with a cell phone (Treo)
here’s a comparison
table.
For historical value, here’s
the list of vintage Palm devices, and their features.
I recommend looking at a few different discount online hardware
vendors, showing prices and feature-lists:
Buy.com, Outpost.com, Amazon.com, MobilePlanet, BuynShopMy favorite shopping site is Froogle (yes a clever pun and mis-spelling). This is a Google-powered shopping engine and price aggregator. A powerful search for all PalmOS PDAs between $50 – $500 is here, and includes used, rebuilt and orphaned models.
Many prices are indexed at PriceWatch.com but you won’t find a word of description.
Similarly, BizRate is an index of prices from various online vendors.
Notes:
Well, it’s actually a Tungsten E, replacing a Tungsten C, which was provided to me by DUHS (for WiFi use and testing) to replace my own and again Tungsten E, which replaced a Palm m515, replacing my HandEra 330, replacing a TRGPro, which replaced a Palm IIIxe, which replaced a Palm III, which followed a Palm 500 equipped with a pager-card, which replaced a Palm 100. Looks from my accumulated calendar data that I became a Palm-guy in September 1996.
American Heart Association Guidelines |
Several well formatted, formal position statements on heart care. Unfortunately, requires their own special viewer "The APPRISOR", 326 KB. Examples include: |
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Audible Player |
This is a very cool online subscription service offering digital downloads of audiobooks. The implementation of the playback from PalmOS devices does not require the MP3 software, and runs very well… but used considerable battery power. If you’re going to sign up, let me know first, and I get credit for recruiting you. Software is free, pay for each book or an annual subscription. |
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AvantGo | Amazing program which seizes and
encapsulates material from webpages, auto-updating on each
synchronizing episode (if desktop is online). Hosting firm allows free
registration for several pre-prepared "channels" including all the
(full-text!) articles from the front page of the New York Times, plus
all updates from your choice of hundreds of contemporary URL’s,
including The Onion, movie schedules, etc.
Free for usual profile, more for wholesale data-grab. |
||||
Backup Programs |
I have used Back-up BuddyVFS so long that I thought it was part of the Palm OS, and forgot it to be a commercial program (usually $25, sometimes "on sale" $20). There’s a BackupBuddyVFS Personal version that has limited functionality, saving data to card-only, and is only $10. Other programs are less famous and less costly, and unfamilar to me. Features to consider are whether the program allows you to have automatic scheduled backups (eg overnight), incremental back-ups (ie copy only new or changed files), multiple copies of back-ups (to separate sub-directories), or even compressed file storage to take up less room on the RAM card. TealBackup $20, PiBackup II $15 , BackupMan $15, Resco Backup $15, OnGuard Backup $15, Pocket Backup, $10, Instant Backup $10, and several others are free (which can be worrisome for such a critical functionality) SmartBackup, Backup, NVBackup, Inner Backup Another option is to use a file management tool to "manually" select all files (*.*) on the Palm and send copies to the external RAM. Filez (below) is a free example of this kind of program. Z-Launcher (also below) is a program menuing / launching program, and it also includes a robust and well-designed file manager. |
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Bio-Hazard Manual (loads directly to Palm) |
USAMRIID’s Medical Management of
Biological Casualties Handbook resides
here on the web. The US Army Institute of Infectious Diseases has a free complex document (requires iSilo, see below). The text itself is surprisingly small, only 149K. Free. |
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Calc! | Powerful, simple calculator
with parentheses, editable formula use, high end trig and log functions. Shareware: $12.50 |
||||
Cesium | Clock, with timers, count-down,
alarm, large font, multiple time-zones, stopwatch, w/laps
Shareware Others include Big Clock , which is free. |
||||
Chem Hazard Treatment Guide (loads directly to Palm) | This is an iSilo consolidation
& compression of a very powerful resource. Treatment
Of Chemical Agent Casualties And Conventional Military Chemical
Injuries, FM8-285. The document resides at Office of the Surgeon General
Medical NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical). This rather large reference required considerable work to get the whole contents into a single subdirectory and then to simplify the HTML links, with reformatting for Palm. Otherwise, the text and content are entirely unchanged 388Kb, Free. |
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CIA World Fact Book | HUGE doc file, free, with every
amazing fact about every country in the world. Imagine population,
literacy, miles of paved roads, cash crops, HIV sero-positivity, plus a
map and the flag. Online, it’s here.
6.5 Meg (yes, Meg), so needs to live on your external RAM. Read it with iSilo. Free. |
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CityZen | A map of the whole world, incl 3,350
geographic items (2861 cities, 194 countries, 233 islands, 62 lakes and
oceans)!! Can calculate distances, search for key sites. Free |
||||
Clinical Pharmacology OnHand | A (barely) portable version of Clinical
Pharmacology, which is my favorite onlinedrug
reference site (commercially licensed by the Duke Medical
Library). The Palm product requires and makes good use of external RAM,
or else nobody could install it! I find it emphasizes true pharmacology
(ie kinetics, interactions) much more than humble doc-topics like
therapeutics. It’s capable of auto-updating, but failed to achieve this on my machine without tying itself into knots.
$100/yr (free through Duke’s license) |
||||
CurrCalc | Converts ANY kind of data between
units, incl weight, time, speed, currency, temp, even
currency. I made downloadable tables that allow direct translation within the whole class of narcotics, benzodiazepines, glucocorticoids. If you use these and like them, let me know. I wonder if ANYbody is using this program as a clinical dosing calculator. Entirely customizable, intuitive fast to use. An all around OK calculator, too. Shareware, $13. |
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Element | Periodic Table of Elements; Amazingly
easy database and image for quick lookups Shareware, $10. |
||||
ePharmacopoeia by Tarascon | The electronic version of the very
popular pocket reference book. Much easier to read for the bifocal set.
Now a fully developed, auto-updated subscription. $28/yr |
||||
ePocrates
Disclaimer:
The company gave me a free "editorial" copy of the newest version of this program. I’ve been a fan and paying customer for years before this. New disclosure: They’ve recruited me to be an "Advocate" and I now have an ePocrates hat, bag and water bottle, in exchange for completing questionnaires. |
Like a PDR, faster, categorical and
incl just the pill-sizes, adv effects, drug class and high-risk or
high-prob interactions. Prices are quoted from Drugstore.com. Most
useful clinical Plam program I know.
|
||||
Filez |
Free tool provides "Windows Explorer" tools to manage content of your internal Palm files, and for your external RAM card. Subdirectory, wild-card, multi-parameter sorts are very useful. A commercial tool with similar capabilities is Tealmover, $15. File management is built-in for Z-Launcher (see below), and very capable. |
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FindHack |
Very slick replacement for the otherwise AWFUL PalmOS search tool. Allows search for wildcards, and limits to the current database (eg Addresses). Even though it is called "hack", it is a stand-alone program, and does work in PalmOS 5 $15 |
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Five Minute
Clinical Consultant |
Yes, the whole book. It’s a great way
to find the rest of the differential dx, the complications that you’ve
never seen and the manifestations of illness that would prove/disprove
a diagnosis. It’s $65, both from SkyscapeHandHeldMed. They used to differ, and may still present the data in different formats. For $75 there’s a 3rd version, from LexiComp. There’s a ?reduced version within the highest-end version of ePocrates ("Essentials"), for $60/yr. |
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GrxView Photo Viewer |
View, sort, zoom, auto-load photos or other graphics files as GIF or JPEG files in RAM or on card. Seems more flexible than the internal Palm prg which breaks often. Reads data from external card quickly and readily. $15 |
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ICDMeister |
Well coded iSilo doc file that allows fast reference to ICD-9 codes, with simplified organ system organization, and quick search. The structure is of numerous linked pages, very much like a complex web-domain. Shareware, $40 1st yr, then $20/yr thereafter (seems a lot for a simple document, but it’s more accessible and useful than free standing programs). |
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Intellifind |
Makes it
easier to find where you put data that might have been been stored in
an odd place. EG, a restaurant that was noted on your calendar or in a
DOC review or a memo (instead of your addressbook) can be found more
interactively and by several slick search parameters.
$15 |
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International Chemical Safety Cards (ICSCs) | The ICSCs project is an undertaking
of the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS),
affiliated with International
Occupational Safety and Health Information Centre . NIOSH
makes this database available at its site.
This file is VERY LARGE: 4.6 Meg This may be because I chose to use the NIOSH version, which includes several supplemental tables. You will need iSilo (see below) to manage the internal text compression and hyperlinks. |
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iSilo
Actually, I also use SmartDoc (it can edit doc files on the Palm), but recommend this one because it manages linked text, like the CIA & NIOSH compendia, see below). |
Display giant text files (larger than
the Palm memo-prg permits), including data compression and
scrolling. Wonderfully stable use of larger files on external RAM cards. iSilo is unique in that it also holds formatted HTML files (from the web), graphics and apparently compresses text files even tighter than the other doc-readers listed below. Shareware $20. Other options:
AportisDoc
; TealDoc
, SmartDoc , Qvadis , RichReader
(free) , CSpotRun
(free) |
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Johns Hopkins Antibiotic Guide | Much easier to use in Palm, but less definitive, less complete than Sanford (see below), but smaller, auto-updating if you synch from an online PC and $25 (new charge via Skyscape as of 2008). | ||||
JFile Pro | Flat-file database, for tables
sortable by any parameter (Eg: anti-depressant meds, US-States, US
Presidents) Licensed software, $25 Other option: HanDBase, where prices are $30 – $100, depending on programming tools you purchase. |
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MedCalc | Powerful clinical calculator,
including >30 separate parameters, eg: GFR, Osmotic gap (plasma
& stool), BSA, BMI… you name it. Free. |
||||
MedMath | Another wonderful clinical
calculator, with EBM calculations as well as lab parameters.
Free. |
||||
MedRules | Another medical calculator, but more
regarding risks and decisions, than for physiological parameters and
clinical factors. Even shows citations for any calculation (eg Ranson’s
Criteria for pancreatitis mortality). Free. |
||||
Merck Manual | Classic simple introduction
to clinical topics. Cheaper and wider range topics than 5 Min Clinical
Consults. Inexplicably, this text is free to enrolled clinical professionals, and offers auto-updates and a very simple interface, but is also for sale ($80) here. |
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MentSTAT |
Very small and simple program that provides reminder for doing and scoring the Folstein MiniMental exam. Free |
||||
NIOSH
Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards
Updated: 11/2005
|
From the National
Institute of Occupational Health and Safety , the Pocket
Guide is "a source of general industrial hygiene information on several
hundred chemicals/classes for workers, employers, and occupational
health professionals". I downloaded the digital text, and compressed it
to a BIG (nearly 1.4 Meg) iSilo document. Most users will
want to put this in their external RAM card, depending on their setup.
This is a hyper-linked series of web-pages, and will run only on iSilo,
not other ‘doc’ readers.
In case it works better: here’s the old version, created in 2004. |
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PDAReach | A miraculous program that allows PC on-screen (& thus
projectible), live, fully active use of your actual Palm (attached via
its Hot-Synch cable). Tthe best teaching tool I’ve ever used for
showing PDAs. I can’t believe how powerful, attractive, flexible,
intuitive and simple-to-install! $24 Don’t even THINK of using the Palm Emulator, which is awkward to impossible, and requires that your desktop run programs several years too-new for the device it’s emulating. |
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PEPID | Several programs, more narrative than
tabular, but including a pharmacopoeia as well as diagnostic and
clinical/therapeutic recommendations. There’s a shareware 1-month
trial, then subscribe for 6,12,24 months. $110/yr for each program: All Physicians, Emergency Medicine, Clinical Nursing, Medical Student, Emergency Medical Services, Portable Drug Companion I never have used or bought this. |
||||
Redi-Reference – Clinical Guidelines | Many guidelines from AHA, NIH, CDC, incl JNC-VI, Asthma guidelines, STD Rx programs. 120 Kb, $20 | ||||
Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy |
This is obviously the most authoritative ID consult tool. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy to use as the pocket book with the tiny print. The interface
leads the user through choice after choice and then finally
provides some recommendations. My clinical problem with it is that you
can’t see what would have been recommended if the
patient WERE (eg) allergic to PCN. |
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Shots | A quick reference guide to the 2006 Childhood Immunization Schedule, a collaboration of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), and the 2005-2006 Adult Immunization Schedule, recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Details on each vaccine are available by clicking on the vaccine names. Three versions are available, with high- or low-resolution photos of the infections, or none.Free | ||||
SplashID |
Retains passwords and access information in an encrypted format, both on the Palm (better than the internal password for PalmOS), and on any backed-up format (eg card or desktop). $30 |
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STAT Cholesterol | Calculate recommendations based on
the new "Third Report
of the Expert Panel on Detect., Eval., & Rx of High Blood
Cholesterol in Adults" guidelines Free. This program’s website links to another palm-based, free lipid-action calculator at the ATP-III / NCEP home site . They state their own program does not underestimate CAD risk. |
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STAT GrowthCharts | Calculate accurate growth percentiles
and Z scores using the newly revised CDC Growth Charts including the
new Body Mass Index-for-age charts. Free. |
||||
Teal Lock |
Smart Palm lock. Allows many types of passwords, auto-locks after certain time, certain command, with varying security for different files. Long password for changing features, short password for simple entry. $20 |
||||
Teal Paint | Draw digital images on Palm, many
brushes, shapes, tools, fills $20 |
||||
TextPlus |
Very powerful & flexible text-entry tool that
permits users to recognize and complete any word that’s begun, from a
large vocabulary in a glossary file, based on frequency of prior use.
Also offers the opportunity to add, create, combine both vocabuary and
phrase books. Best of all, the glossary and phrase files are managed on
the PC, in regular text-editors, then re-imported to the Palm, so you
have all your screen space & keyboard capabilities. |
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UltraLingua Language Dictionaries |
Very smart language translation dictionaries. Provides full vocabulary (website says 350,000), but also decodes numerical strings, conjugates verbs in 12 tenses, allows uers to add their own vocabulary. Most of the huge datafiles can be kept on the external RAM card. $30 per language (I have English <-> Spanish and English <->French and English<->Italian) Since I use them very differently, I can say I like the Spanish most (I’m a struggling but active learner), the Italian least (tried to make it work as a phrase book, for a language I didn’t intend to learn) and French middle, since I know lots of French and used it only to remind me of specific words. |
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USPTF / AHRQ Prevention Guidelines |
Free reminder / decision tool for recommended prevention practices (including the level of evidence-based support) for patients, chosen my age, gender, clinical circumstance (eg pregnancy)., as evaluated by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Distributed by the Agency of Healthcare Research & Quality. The program linked to the left includes its own search capabilities, but there’s also a web/hypertext version (for online use or creating a customized iSilo or SunRise database) and a downloadable a print/PDF version, too. |
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Vindigo | Guides, reviews, interactive
instructions, schedules and great travel resources for many
cities:
|
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WISER | WISER (Wireless Information
System for Emergency Responders) is a system designed to assist First
Responders in hazardous material incidents. Developed by the National
Library of Medicine, WISER provides a wide range of information on
hazardous substances, including substance identification support,
physical characteristics, human health information, and containment and
suppression guidance. The informational content is similar to NIOSH
Pocket Guide, but simpler vocabulary. Even though it’s called wireless, what they mean is self-contained (no net access is needed) Free. |
||||
ZLauncher | Even better utility than
Launch’em, this tool offers integration of all programs (internal or
external RAM), screen organization, tab menu capability, an internal
file manager, direct access to beaming from internal or external RAM
and (for those interested) wall paper and screen images. Shareware, $20 |
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911 (or .911) | A FREE resource that incorporates content from Outlines in Clinical Medicine/Medical Emergencies and the CDC regarding potentially rapidly-spreading diseases, including SARS & bio-terrorism agents. This merges nicely into the 5-Min Clinical Consult and Bartlett’s Infectious Disease software from the same vendor, but stands alone nicely. Routinely checks for updates, so more uptodate than the other titles by this vendor. |
Dr. Greenberg’s Recommendations:
Definitive site for software, including purchase, download, upgrade, you-name-it.: Palm Gear HQ
Great informal narrative resources by/for doctors:
Most of the commercial sites want you to stay and chatPDAMD ‘s forum
palm-med (free subscription at University of Michigan, available as daily digest)
comp.sys.palmtops.pilot newsgroup, hundreds and hundreds of daily messages to review
Battery died (especially the rechargeable ones). This dpes require a l-o-n-g period of neglect, since the data is still viable and protected when the Palm is merely too tired to turn on. From there to fully brain-dead is still days-to-weeks
Screen stops responding
Software knots your session and warm reset (button on the back) wont help (Blinking top-left cursor, on off on off on off on off)
Physical damage: Falls, jumps, hides to a non-secure situation (eg into a toilet)
Cold reset is required (Reset button while holding down power button)
1. Synch to several sites.
(Privacy is a later topic, see below.) Everytime you see a colleague
has a matching cradle, synch there. If you have a work & home
(or home x 2) PC’s, install the Palm software on both, and migrate the
cable/cradle to each in turn, then synch. Each Palm can safely synch to
multiple desktops (somewhat slower than usual). Each desktop
installation can accommodate any number of Palms.
3. Copy everything to your external RAM.
Using the file manager programs (list
available), copy your whole Palms native RAM to a
subdirectory within your external RAM card (memory stick, CF card, SD
card, Visor expansion card). This RAM is non-volatile, its
portable into a replacement device and is more easily backed-up.
Backup programs are listed above.
4. Auto-update this RAM-card backup.
BackupBuddyVFS
(part of BackupBuddy, see above) and some of the more sophisticated
backup programs provide daily back-ups of any updated file to your
external card. It copies every changed Palm file to my RAM
card at 3AM daily. Other back-up programs are listed above.
5. Copy RAM card to desktop.
Own or share a card
reader for your version of external RAM. These are cheap
(~$12 or less), and link either to your laptops PCMCIA slot,
or to the USB slot. I have a single reader that speaks CF, SD,
MemoryStick, MM.
Card readers are also very nice for moving large iSilo text files, Word files, MP3’s, photos, and pdf’s onto your Palm’s card. This is lightning fast compared with using Hot-Synch to move data through the cable to the Palm and then to the card.
6. Back up your PCs data. (now, and
frequently)
If you can write CDs, make a copy of your cherished files to
CD and take it to another site, eg office to home and visa-versa. Your
whole Palm back-up subdirectory is an easy grab, and while
youre at it, copy your My Documents,
your email address book, your browser bookmarks, your digital photos
(even those youve just saved from emails).
Just as easy, and even more accessible, why not Winzip a whole copy of your Palm back-up (with a password) and send it to your Gmail (or Hotmail or Yahoo) account, so it lives on professionally managed server, and is available to you regardless what happens to your home or office?
Become familiar with the terrific repositories for useful Palm memos. Consider MemoWare or PalmGear for non-technical / non-medical content. For medical content, check HealthyPalmPilot, Jim Thompson’s site and the Medical Web Ring.
The tool that allows you to cut & paste from one program (eg e-mail) to another (eg Palm desktop’s Memos) is the Windows Clipboard. To enhance this capability, I recommend ClipMate ($30), a utility which retains your clips, either permanently or in a stack of the most recent data-grabs. Great and necessary features include:
a. Serial clips. This is like high-lighting with your mouse and retaining whatever you found important.
b. Combining clips. This allows you to combine the last several clips, and assemble them into a single paste.
c. De-formatting clips. Remove carriage returns, indents, bold/italics commands. Even remove the awful email quote marks like >> and ::.
d. Saving clips for later. Paragraphs you use a lot are available in a non-transient list, only a couple of keystrokes away.
Once you’re used to this technique, it’s useful to remember that memos aren’t just in the Palm’s Memo section. They can also be attached
Memos are only allowed to reach 4 Kb in size.
Big (even GIANT) files you dont need to edit again, and just want to be able to read (eg. the biographies of the incoming intern class) can be compressed and stored on your Palm.
Other examples include the whole hospital phonebook, a big list of medical Spanish phrases, the entire ICD-9 code-list, every telephone area code in N. America.
a. Own and install a doc reader (iSilo preferred, see above)
b. Create the text file
c. Utilize one of the doc compressing tools (I use MakeDocW. Its free. iSiloX does this too (see below))
d. Install the file into your Palm
Free with the iSilo doc reader is iSiloX,
a program that allows the capture of a web-page and an arbitrary
click-depth for secondary linked pages. These are then combined into a
proprietary format (no longer a doc), that iSilo
can use, including the live links from page to page. For example: the
table of contents and actual abstracts (linked from the front page) in
a particular issue of JAMA. Amazing examples of pre-prepared iSilo
documents: CIA World Fact Book, Code-Meister structured ICD-9 listing,
U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID)
Bio-Hazard handbook.
Use the card reader to enable direct copy to the RAM card. Many files
will be (MUCH) too large to pass through the
Palms own synchronize conduit.
AvantGo
is a free tool that gathers information from the WWW for display on
your Palm (and away from online wires and your desktop). Cool
pre-existing channels include the New York Times (and all the content
on its front page), and a directory of all the movies at all the
theaters near your specific area code.
If theres a dynamic website you need to
monitor (eg the residency call schedule), then you can create a special
AvantGo channel that reaches out to that site,
and copies the data into your Palm new for each Hot-Synch. You specify
how many links deep the file grabber reaches.
If you want to create or obtain a file as an Excel spreadsheet, a Word document or an Acrobat file, you can copy them to your Palm through several special conduit and commercial viewing programs. Documents To Go offers all three of these file types, as does Quickoffice and Mobipocket. Docs to Go is free with some PDA’s from Palm, and QuickOffice is free with the HandEra. This is how the ACOEM chose to distribute its schedule and meeting details.
Even if you use the Palms internal password protection and your patient files are marked private, it seems that they can be read (for sure when copied onto a PC). There are utilities which reset (cancel) a Palm password, and others which can read password-protected memos on your hard drive.
Not surprisingly, when the clinical data is captured from hospital sources, responsibility for data management and ensuring the security of information resides with the hospital. That means that the use of PDAs for casual use and clinical data is likely to soon be the topic of strict DHIS rules. That means my opinion and advice will be moot (if not mute).
Reading around on the web, I dont think that any but fanatical individual Palm owners are in compliance with the institutional requirements.
These may include:
A) Required password changing every few months.
B) Security systems which prohibit automatic password-guessing programs to endlessly guess entry codes
C) 128-byte encryption of confidential data
D) Transaction Logs, for:
(1) access
(2) transmission
(3) beaming
(4) synchronization
E) Encryption of data including all copies (RAMcard, desktop, backups)
F) Automatic time-out programs which require timed re-logins
Ask yourself how much protection would you be embarrassed
NOT to provide.
A) At least use the security provided to you.
Create a password and designate sensitive files as
private
Add false digits to sensitive codes/account information
B) Automatic time-out programs are a good idea,
even just to show a stranger who found your Palm how to return it. If
you have a new Palm, the OS’ Security program
includes the option to require your password after a pre-determined
idle period. If you dont have this option, it can
be added via Check-In
($11) or TealLock
($17). The latter program has tons of other advantages, but no desktop
protection. Secret!
and Secret! Desktop ($35) encrypt the data on your PC and
backups too. OnlyMe
($10) has clever additions, including a single encrypted keystroke
unlock and comprehensive protection of the whole PDA’s contents.
Recognize that even though the Palm programs (handheld & desktop) may require a password to see specific data, that a serious hacker can use other non-protected tools to parse stored files, especially once on a PC. There are several programs which encrypt files stored on your Palm so this won’t happen. Once encrypted, files are still unreadable in backup (RAM-card & desktop), and are clearly more secure.
The non-financial price is lthe risk of losing the password, and the difficulty in sharing such files.
Sadly, there’s no standardization for what they hold.
Palm: SecureDigital
Visor: SpringBoard originally, SecureDigital now
Sony: Memory Stick
HandEra has both CompactFlash & SecureDigital
Expansion cards are cheap ($40 for 2 Gig!)
There are TONS of Palm-based file managers, which function just like the Windows Explorer. Each allows the user to see a list of files, and move or copy them to RAM card, and even to create sub-directories on the RAM card.
Choose among: TealMover, PocketFolder, MyWorkbench, McFile, FileZ (free), FilePoint, FileInfo, FileMan. If you have a HandEra, you get CardPro for free. If you have a Sony Clie, you get MSGATE included in your operating system.
This is the Virtual File Server. It
allows the Palm to use files in its external RAM without you having to
copy each file into easier reach each time you use it.
a. Launcher Programs are easiest
In current Palm devices, a sophisticated Launcher program can read this subdirectory RAMCard:/Palm/Launcher as if it were the internal Palm memory. Thats a great place to store non-critical programs. A general principle is that the data in this directory is where youd put the read-only resource or reference files. Its probably NOT where the program will store your tiny configuration files.I use Zlauncher, and previously LaunchEm. Launcher X ($19), MegaLauncher ($20) are examples
b. Make use of specific programs ability to store individual files externally
iSilo stores and manages data at RAMCard:palmprogramsiSilo JFile stores in RAMCard:palmprogramsJFile HanDBase has its own too.
HUGE files (large documents, MP3’s, photos, reference books) are better stored in the external RAM. Not only is this a cheaper, less dynamic resource, but loading the files with a card reader is MUCH faster and easier.
Skyscape programs (Lexidrugs, 5-Min Clinical Consult, others) offer specific installation instructions for storing massive data outside the Palm. RAMCard:palmprogramsmsfiles. This is very nicely done, and very stable, reliable.Hopkins Antibiotic Guide and the Palm version of Sanford have a separate installation technique. For Sanford, the off-Palm implementation is painfully s-l-o-w and moderately unstable.
Clinical Pharmacology OnHand for Palm seems to be free for Duke personnel, and requires 13 MB of RAM(!). All but 1 MB are intended for external installation.
For questions: e-mail Gary Greenberg, MD