No longer relegated to the boardrooms of big business, PDAs are gaining, albeit slowly, popularity among Family physicians and specialists have been using PDAs for general medical reference, such as drug interactions, pharmacopeias (books containing an official list of medicinal drugs together with articles on their preparation and use), and cardiac risk of patients.

Collecting and managing data are also areas in which PDAs are entering the foray.  Areas such as patient tracking, electronic Case Report Forms in clinical trials, patient diaries, and infection surveillance data are being entered into these handy handheld devices. However, the suitability of PDAs across all health care contexts and whether they benefit health outcomes remain open questions.

Some of the findings, sourced from the review of 23 unique surveys, were that categorized by:

Age:

–         Younger physicians (less then 40 years of age) were more likely to consider carrying a handheld computer than older physicians

Students & Medical Residents

–        13% of the residency programs required the use of PDAs,

–        15% of programs purchased PDAs for their residents, and a similar proportion reported that PDAs were used by “most or all” of their residents to document procedures

Gender

–        PDA usage among men and women was equal in a 2001 survey of internists

Hospital vs. Practice based

–        use was higher among those who were wholly or partly hospital-based, than those who are large or independent practice based

Urban versus Rural Physicians

–        In the past four years, PDA use has gone from being higher among physicians practicing in urban centers than in rural centres to the reverse.

For complete study results, please see: Who’s Using PDAs? Estimates of PDA Use by Health Care Providers: A Systematic Review of Surveys