PalmBlog

Comments During Healthcare Webinar

According to the presentation, nearly 35% of physicians use handhelds, and 2/3 to 34 of those are PalmOS (Gartner 2002). A MercuryMD survey says 79% of the 2000 residents surveyed are using PalmOS units, 4%
PocketPC.



Jonathan's comment: I wonder how many of those devices are actually provided
by the hospitals, and how many doctors are simply doing it on their own?



Use breakout: 84% scheduling, 67% professional scheduling, 53% durg information, 16% clinical decision support, 10% to prescribe meds, 6% to complete charge capture, 4% to access medical records... it's anticipated that lab results and patient data access and decision support materials are the growth areas of medical PDA use.



Apps: McKesson's Horizon MobileCare Rounding and Messaging; PatientKeeper Personal; MercuryMD's Mdata Enterprise System, and ePocrates Rx.



Jonathan's comment: My health insurance provider, Oxford, makes its formulary available to members through
ePocrates.



pdaMD.com provides applications and information, skyscape provides "online mobile solutions and medical resources."



Jonathan's comment: I published some reviews on pdaMD's sister site pdaJD. It's interesting to see how the vertical sites differ.



HIPAA requirements: PalmOS 5.0 and up meet HIPAA requirements; OS has built-in security (system level authorization and authentication; SSL encryption); applications from Palm Solutions Providers provide additional protections (passwords; encryption; VPNs)



Highspeed networks (LANs/WANs) used by 68% of health care facilities



RE: Hospitals and Data Security: 802.1x/LEAP coming from Meetinghouse AEGIS in August; VPN built-in, and Certicom movianVPN, an IPSec client, available in fall.