CP on Hand

Information about Clinical Pharmacology on Hand, Gold Standard's PDA product can be found at

www.clinicalpharmacologyonhand.com

Gold Standard offers 3 products available for download onto Pocket PC or Palm, Not Smartphones. They will not download onto a PDA with less than 16 MB of internal memory, and external memory download is preferred. These can be purchased and used separately or together. Although Clinical Pharmacology is offered as an online product, this must be purchased separately. Information below is adapted from the website.

CP onHand ($99):

• Extensive, peer-reviewed drug content
• Drug descriptions, indications, interactions, precautions/contraindications, classifications, adverse reactions, pregnancy/lactation, administration and dosage forms/strengths
• Pediatric, adult, geriatric, hepatic and renal dosing, and dosage limits, specific to indication, including off-label uses
• Search capabilities by generic or brand name, indication, classification, precaution or adverse reaction
• Personal notes capabilities to save your individual reminders and records

• Drug interactions report tool for checking combinations of prescription drugs, OTC, herbal and nutritional products for potential interactions – includes severity rankings and screening for lifestyle factors such as caffeine, food, alcohol, enteral feedings, grapefruit juice and tobacco
• Need 14 MB of free RAM
  

CP onHand Drug Indentifier ($39):

• Allows you to identify drugs based on their markings and/or shape and color.
• Information found will include:

Product Name
Marketer
NDC Number
Legend (Rx, Generic, OTC)
Dosage Form
Route of Administration
Orange Book Rating
Markings/Imprints
Color

• Needs 5 MB of free RAM
  

Shape CP onHand IV Alert ($49):

• Allows you to check the compatibility of two or more intravenous products and/or solutions when mixed in solution or a syringe, or via a Y-site administration
• Needs 2 MB of free RAM
  

None of the other products by Gold Standard are available for download onto a PDA.

Tarascon

Tarascon comes as a paperback and PDA pharmacopoeia. They offer a variety of pocketbooks, each color coded and very small, as well as a few reference cards. The PDA version used to be very similar to Epocrates and was offered for free. Interestingly enough, Tarascon is also a small town in France. Their website is

www.tarascon.com

The PDA pharmacopoeia can be downloaded to Palm, PocketPC and Blackberry. This can be done online or you can buy a CD that will guide you with downloading. It costs $29.95 for a 12 month subscription and includes peer reviewed drug information, typical dosing (FDA approved and off-label uses), available trade name and generic formulations, metabolism and safety in pregnancy and lactation. Other aspects include:

• Expanded drug information from the Deluxe Edition of the print Pocket Pharmacopoeia
• A fully integrated tool for multiple drug interaction checking
• Continuous ongoing drug information auto-updates via the internet
• Palm®, Pocket PC®, and Blackberry® versions, including support for most extended memory cards
• Complete customer privacy. Unlike other medical software we will never sell your personal data and product use patterns to others
• A fully integrated "Herbal & Alternative Therapy" section
• 47 invaluable reference tables and 9 dynamic medical formula calculators
• Both convenient relative pricing codes ($ to $$$$$) and exact prices directly from www.drugstore.com
• Extensive pediatric drug dosing
• Unique Canadian trade names and drugs
• Software written by USBMIS, Inc, creators of the popular PDA versions of The Sanford Guide®

found on the product information page on the website.

Database Comparison

As I review the variety of drug databases available in mobile and online versions, one topic I'm not touching on is validity or scope. There are, however, studies to assess this important aspect. Here are a list of some I found on PubMed. I've included the title and the PubMedID, and they are available online for free either as an abstract or in full.

Clinical decision support tools: analysis of online drug information databases. PMID: 1734633

Performance of drug-drug interaction software for personal digital assistants. PMID: 16622155

Lactation safety recommendations and reliability compared in 10 medication resources. PMID: 17623757

Epocrates

Epocrates: The first in a series of drug databases to be reviewed. Epocrates has a PDA and online version available at www.epocrates.com.

The database itself comes in several forms with different products all of which include free content updates, medical news, mobile CME learning center, MedTools applications, and international drug name indexes. MedTools contains a variety of screening and dosing tools such as BMI and obesity tool, drip rate calculator, INR calc, Heparin dosing protocol etc.

Mobile Devices:

Epocrates RX (free): drug monographs, health plan formularies, drug interaction checker, calculators
Epocrates RX Pro ($60/1 yr): The above and infectious disease treatment guide, alternative medicines, IV compatability checker
Epocrates Essentials ($149/ 1 yr): All the above and disease monographs, symptom assessment, diagnostic and laboratory tests
Epocrates Essentials Deluxe ($199/ 1 yr): All the above and ICD-9 and CPT codes, medical dictionary
Epocrates Coder ($70/ 1yr): CD-9 and CPT codes
Epocrates Medical Dictionary ($20/ 1yr): medical dictionary

These products include more than 3300 drugs, 1200 diseases, 400 alternative medication, 100,000 medical terms, over 30 medical formulas, hundreds of tests and panels as well as 20,000 ICd-9 codes. The drug interaction tool can check 30 drugs at a time and the IV compatability tool references Kings Guide. Each mobile version also includes MyEpocrates which allows you to create shortcuts, add notes to drug monographs, view your Rx look up history, change your default screen, and add whichever MedTools you'd like.

Online Version:

Epocrates Online (free): Drug monographs, health plan and hospital insurance formularies, drug interaction checker, full color pill pictures, patient medication handout (spanish/ english)
Epocrates Online Premium ($60/ 1 yr): All the above plus Pill identifier, clinical tables and guidelines, Med calculators, alternative medicines

If you'd like to learn how to better use the software there is a Tips page at

http://www.epocrates.com/products/tips/

The products themselves are both Palm and PocketPC compatible, however some of the MedTools are Palm only and neither are available for smartphone use.

Overall Epocrates gives good information and is very easy to use. You can search by drug class as well as brand and generic name. Pregnancy and lactation information seems limited and is found under the safety monitoring tab.

Free Stuff!

HEY CHECK IT OUT!! It's FREE STUFF for your PDA

http://www.fppda.com/free.html

The main page might have information you may be interested in as well.

Palm Vs. Pocket

The great handheld debate, which do you choose, a Palm OS or a Pocket PC?

I feel the differences between them are mostly important for what you want to do. A Palm program is older and a little bit more difficult to use. They can typically only run 1 program at a time and may have memory restrictions. Because they have been out for a longer period of time however, there are a great many free or cheap programs for download.

Pocket PC on the other hand really is more like a mini computer. They tend to offer a more user friendly interface and the ability to use more than one application at a time. However, with newer technology usually comes more problems, and they tend to be a little bit more difficult to solve.
Running many programs at a time may slow down your software.

Below are a list of links that include comparisons of the 2:

http://palmtops.about.com/od/pda101/l/blchart.htm

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,111825-page,1-c,palmbasedpdas/article.html

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/tips/palm_vs_pocketpc.htm

These are in relation to medicine:

http://www.med.yale.edu/library/technology/PDA/pdahardware.html

http://www.collectivemed.com/buyguide_hard2.shtml