Kevin's Watch

For those of you that are tech savvy, have a palm or have insight, i have some questions!

1. For any who have used medical software for PDAs, aside from hippocrates, has anyone used another program that they like (i'm trying to decide if i should buy hippocrates or not)

2. Cases, i hate hard cases, i would like to find something leather that i can put in my scrubs and isn't obtrusive when i'm giving patient care, i doubt someone wants a metal case jabbing them when i'm doing a dressing change...lol...so if you have a particular company or model you recommend, i'd like input (i have a palm t/x).

3. Does anyone have recommendations for good navigational software, i just got this palm and would like to use it also as a GPS, i saw palm has actual GPS packages, but if i could just buy the software, that'd be stellar.

I had a Palm Tungsten T2 for about five years and only recently swapped it for a Palm Treo 750, which means I'm now using Windows Mobile instead of Palm OS.

I did have a few medicalish applications for the Tungsten, but I'm not sure of the exact names. I had one that was a database of all the amino acids, another that had lots of EKG information in it (I only ever took EKGs, never interpreted them but it was a cool program) and another that was like a medical dictionary of the more obscure medical conditions. The applications I actually used the most were Documents To Go, the standard Palm organiser, VersaMail and Adobe Acrobat Reader for Palm, all of which I found absolutely essential.

I think I only ever had one leather case and that was for my old Palm Vx, I actually swear by the hard cases. I've have a trail of cracked and dented hard cases, and unscathed PDAs, that attest to their effectiveness. My worst habit was keeping them in a low pocket in my labcoat (and I always wore oversized labcoats) and then whacking them on cupboards, benches, doors or bedframes if I turned around too fast. The downside is that the PDA will generally take up more room in a hard case.

I never used satellite navigation on any of my old Palms, but I have it for the Treo. I got TomTom Navigator 6, which popped right on and a keychain GPS unit by Freedom. The advantage of this setup is that I don't have to make any extra provision to use it when I'm on foot; all I need is my phone and my car keys, plus there's no separate unit to get stolen from the car.

Storm-
I use ePocrates. It's free, it's got daily updates. All of the pharmacy info is free, as are lots of the formulas (BMI, A-a gradient, anion gaps etc.). You'd have to pay if you wanted lab reference values, symptom lists or diagnosis information, though.

I have a soft case (a Targus) that fits on my belt loop. My palm is about 7 years old, so might be larger than yours if your model is newer, but it doesn't really fit well into scrub pockets.

Thanks for the input! I was looking at downloading epocrates, i mainly want it for the drug data, i don't need the lab values right now since i can go through my patients charts as needed.

I was reading on hard cases and had heard they aren't that great, but i havn't found a leather case that i really am that excited about yet.