Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) are pocket-sized computers that are used to store and access information. Standard applications include an address database, calendar/appointment book, and note pad. Information can be entered into PDAs by either writing with a stylus or by tapping a small keyboard. External keyboards are also available for many models. Data can be downloaded from the Internet to a personal computer and then transferred (synched or synchronized) to the PDA via cable or wireless (beaming). Examples of PDA software for the health sciences include online textbooks, drug reference databases, decision support tools, calculators, news, and table of content services.

Getting Started

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) Palm Pilot
This is an informative overview for beginners prepared by University of Kentucky College of Dentistry.

Handheld Computers in Family Medicine
University of Wisconsin site discusses the use of handheld computers for medical applications, with a focus on Family Medicine in particular. It is designed primarily for people who are fairly new to handhelds.

Managing Your Professional Life with a Personal Digital Assistant: Productivity Applications
Good overview from Medical Library Association's Public Health/Health Admin Special Interest Group

PDA's in Family Practice at URMC
This site gives a description of PDAs and their use at the Family Practice Department of the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The Personal Digital Assistant: A Doctor's Best Friend
This site is written by Adam Perahia, a 4th year medical student at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. It has a concise introduction and a list of basic applications.

Library Applications

eMedicine
This site contains peer-reviewed disease-specific articles, a drug reference source, and listings of calculators and decision support tools.

Tables of Contents for PDAs
This site is produced at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Library. It gives instructions for synchronizing PDAs to receive tables of contents from several medical journals.

Health-Related Resources

Duke University Medical Center Library: PDA Subject Guide
Good resources that includes PDA software applications, plus information on PDA use at Duke.

Handheldmed
A commercial site that contains software reviews, news, case studies, and software downloads.

Healthy PalmPilot
This commercial site has a large list of PDA medical software, plus good basic tutorials and FAQs.

PDA Resources
This is a PDF document containing a strong hot-linked list of general PDA sites, plus applications for specific topics such as databases, reference texts, and hardware. The list is from an article entitled PDAs in the Midwest that appeared in the July-September, 2001 newsletter issue of the Greater Midwest Region, National Network of Libraries of Medicine.

PDA's for Health Care Providers
This site from the University of Arizona has information about alerts, student and teacher applications, patient tracking, and reference resources.

pdaMD.com
This site has a Learning Center with buyer's guides and how-to sheets for performing major PDA functions. It also has news, reviews, links to articles, and discussion lists.

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) Resources
Virginia Commonwealth University maintains this site. There are sections for specific medical resources and a general section.

General Resources

AvantGo
PDA web browser that can be used to access Internet sites and synch information to the PDA.

Handspring.com
This is the homepage for the company that produces the Visor series of PDAs.

iSilo
This commercial site has a document reader for Palm OS ® handheld PDAs.

Palm.com
This is the homepage for the company that produces the PalmPilot and other PDAs.

PocketPC
This is the homepage for the PDA produced by Microsoft.

Tucows
This commercial site maintains a large list of free software that includes a strong PDA section.