Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)
The use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) in medical care has recently grown tremendously and the number and scope of available medical applications has grown accordingly. There is increasing interest in how PDAs might serve to increase physicians' efficiency and improve the quality of their patient care.
Palm, Inc. introduced the first handheld computers in 1996. The Pilot 1000 and Pilot 5000 organizers were enthusiastically received for ease-of-use and a pocket-sized design that belied their organizational power. PDAs are:
| Simple | There are no complicated steps between you and your information. You don't have time to fumble with confusing menus and hourglass cursors. On a PDA, just touch the Date Book icon and you're on today's agenda. One touch to the scroll button and you see tomorrow's. |
| Wearable | PDAs can be carried everywhere so you can get to your information anytime. They are light and small enough to slip into your pocket or purse easily. |
| Mobile | PDAs are designed to make it easy for you to access your important information no matter where you are or where that information is–on your desktop, on the company server, at home, or on the Web. The Palm VII handheld was the industry's first handheld with built-in wireless connectivity to the Internet and intranets combined with easy, out-of-box account activation. Add-on wireless modems are available for other PDAs. |
From: "Palm OS Feature - Look Out! Palm's Firing Back"
For the health care professional, this trend continues to point toward a future marked by increasing use of mobile technology to access and manage information. As prices fall for wireless-enabled devices and for wireless service (including perhaps subsidized or free hardware as part of a wireless service contract) these mobile computers will quickly become as indispensable as pagers and cell phones.
Nonetheless, while Palm has shown it still has a few tricks up its sleeve, whether the company can continue to dominate the market it pioneered less than five years ago still remains to be seen. Like no other time in its short history, powerful opponents are looking to establish their claim to the wireless future and the tremendous rate of technological change means only the most innovative will survive.
And while some might see the current wave of announcements in the mobile and wireless space as a signal to delay their entrance into the world of handhelds, it is really the opposite choice which should prevail. Granted, the devices available today will likely be obsolete a year from now and the money spent now might seem wasted. But the reality is that technology evolves at a fantastic rate and no matter when one makes the purchase decision, obsolescence will always been on the horizon. Furthermore, only by making the leap and getting used to a mobile device will one truly know what features to look for when they upgrade to newer and more powerful devices. Besides, today's devices have already proven themselves to be tremendous timesavers, and even if they only last a year, the return on investment is still phenomenal. After all, what's your time worth?
Contact Information
| Dr. Peggy J. Wagner Research Director Email: pwagner@mail.mcg.edu (706) 721-7589 |