I’ve just been updating Doctors’ Gadgets.com. The site has news and discussion about PDAs, EMR and other gadgets that doctors use.

It’s also the host to the video tutorials that accompany the RSM Press book, “The Doctors’ PDA and Smartphone Handbook“.

Here’s a demo of a large multi-touch screen. This technology seems to be getting a lot of press at the moment - probably due to the fact that the new Apple iPhone uses a multi-touch screen. (more…)

I’m compiling a list of resources for Evidence Based Medicine at the moment. Here’s what I’ve found:

Online EBM Tutorials:

• Users’ Guides to Evidence-Based Practice: Complete set of Users’ Guides, originally published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
• What is EBM: Centre for EBM, UHN Toronto.
• Introduction to EBM: Duke University.
• An Introduction to Information Mastery: Michigan State University.
• Introduction to EBM: Boston University Medical Center.
• Some principles of Evidence Based Medicine: Washinton University in St. Louis.
• Introduction to Evidence Based Medicine: University of Alberta, EBM Toolkit.
• Netting the Evidence: A ScHARR Introduction to Evidence Based Practice on the Internet. Sheffield University.
• Introduction to Evidence Based Medicine Tutorial: Boston University Medical Centre.
• Evidence Based MEdicine Shepherd: Moodle based EBM course.
• Becoming ADEPT: Sheffield University.

Powerpoint Presentations:

• Introduction to EBM: Uptodate.com (Powerpoint)
• Evidence Based Practice: Paul Glaszion, University of Queensland and Oxford. (Powerpoint)
• Introduction to Evidence Based Medicine: Gregory W Dalack, MD. (Powerpoint)
• Introduction to EBM for Med/Peds Residents: Alex Djuricich, MD. (Powerpoint)
• Principles and Practice of Evidence Based Medicine: Roberto Cardarelli, DO, MPH.
• Introduction to EBM: Rodney Smith, MD. St. Joseph Mercy Hospital University of Michigan.
• Evidence Based Medicine Why? What? Who?: Mass Health Data Consortium.

PDF Files:

• Introduction to Evidence Based Medicine: University of Southern California. (PDF)
• An Introduction to Evidence Based Medicine: Helping Learners Acquire EBM Skills: OUCOM
• An Introduction to Evidence Based Medicine in Family Medicine: Dept of Family Medicine Dalhousie University.
• Searching Medline for Evidence in the Primary Medical Literature: Boston University Medical Center.

EBM Databases:

• EB On-Call: Database of ‘Critically Appraised Topics’ (CATS) of 38 on-call medical conditions.
• National Guideline Clearinghouse: EBM practice guidelines.
• Cochrane: Systematic reviews of the medical literature.
• Infopoems: Database of “Patient Orientated Evidence that Matters”
• Dynamed: Clinically orientated summaries for 2,000 topics.
• Trip Database: EBM Database.
• DUETs: Database of Uncertainties baout the Effects of Treatments.
• HSTAT: Health Services/Technology Assessment Text.
• CMA Infobase: Clinical practice guidelines.
• SUMSearch: selects the best resources for your question, formats your question for each resource, and makes additional searches based on results.
• BestBETs: Best Evidence Topics.

EBM Journals

• ACP Journal Club: Evidenced based original studies and systematic reviews.
• Evidence Based Medicine: for Primary Care and Internal Medicine.
• BMJ Clinical Evidence: from the British Medical Journal.
• Medical Decision Making: bi-monthly, Sage Publications, Inc.
• The Bandolier: an independent journal about EBM.

EBM Calculators:

• EBM Stats Calculator: EBM Calculator is designed to calculate relevant statistics for Diagnostic studies, Prospective Studies, Case Control Studies, and Randomized Control Trials (RCT). Also available for Palm and Pocket PC.
• NNT Calculator: Converts odds ratios to NNTs.
• UBC Clinical Significance Calculator: Calculate clinical significance.

Tools

• CATmaker: Software tool which helps you create Critically Appraised Topics, or CATs.

A new text messaging service allowing patients to make appointments for treatment at a time convenient for them is to be launched at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London in the new year.

The hospital’s Genito-Urinary Medicine (GUM) and Sexual Health clinics will use the system to provide a 24-hour appointment service connected to the hospital’s existing database. The system is intended to reduce the amount of time patients spend waiting on the phone to arrange an appointment, and also help map and plan demand for sexual health services.

Link.

The BMJ recently published a paper written by a team of Australian doctors testing the use of Google as a diagnostic tool.

The article concluded that “Our study suggests that in difficult diagnostic cases, it is often useful to “google for a diagnosis.”Web based search engines such as Google are becoming the latest tools in clinical medicine, and doctors in training need to become proficient in their use.”

The study found that the correct diagnosis was found in 58% of cases.

At first glance only finding the correct diagnosis on only half of cases seems pretty poor (especially compared to what you would expect from a real life doctor).

However, getting any diagnosis correct is a considerable achievement for a tool not built specifically for this purpose and getting over half right is certainly significant. It may even be useful practically in difficult cases where experienced doctors may be looking for suggestions they hadn’t thought of.

It will be interesting to see how this figure progresses over time. How long will it take (if ever) for a search engine like Google to approach the accuracy rate of healthcare professionals.

Google currently doesn’t have access to the range of databases and research available to other diagnositic engines such as Isabel. Perhaps when more databases and research papers are indexed it’s rate of correct diagnosis will increase.

There has been a wide ranging discussion on this paper on the blog-o-sphere:

The IT for Healthcare Blog highlights the authors concerns about patient’s self-diagnosing with Google and points to this counter argument in Modern Healthcare.

The Clinical Cases weblog wonders whether the “wisdom of the crowd” basis of search engines is good enough to be relied upon for diagnosis making.

Tom Roper and Phil Bradley wonder why more medical librarians aren’t publicly commenting on the issue.

The Krafty Librarian has answered this call pointing out that the 58% success rate is only marginally better than flipping a coin.

Researchers at Manchester University have found that using a 3D Virtual Reality program to trick the brain into believing amputees can see and move a virtual reality limb can help with the problem of ‘phantom limb’ pain.

Read the story on the BBC website

I’m leaving for MedNET 2006 tomorrow. If anyone wants to meet up drop me an email - chris@newmediamedicine.com, or post a comment on here.

I’m presenting about medical e-learning at 3pm on Tuesday and running workshop on PDAs on Tuesday evening.

I’ll be around all week, staying in the conference hotel.

Starting this week, applications are open for the Ali
Abdulla Al-Ubaydli™ Scholarships for Mobile Medical Computing™. This is
an international scholarship program sponsored by Epocrates and the five
selected winners will each receive:

* $1,000 Scholarship.
* Mentoring and one-on-one tutorials with Dr Mo Al-Ubaydli.
* Publication of their work in the Mobile Medical Computing Reviews journal
* Press campaigns by Epocrates and Dr Mo Al-Ubaydli.
* One year free subscription to Epocrates Essentials all-in-one mobile
reference to drugs, diseases and diagnostics.

http://www.handheldsfordoctors.com/scholarship

The eJHI (electronic Journal of Health Informatics Inaugural Issue is online here.

Table of Contents:

Editorial
Editor’s Introduction to this Journal: Advancing Health Informatics and the Use of Information, Knowledge and Communication Technologies in Health Care
Evelyn J.S. Hovenga
Guest Editor’s Introduction to Special Issue on Health Data Mining
Jim Warren, John Roddick, Geoff Webb, Graham Williams

Papers
Finding Anomalies in Medicare
Robert A. Pearson, Wayne Murray, Thomas Mettenmeyer
Epidemiological data mining of cardiovascular Bayesian networks
Charles R. Twardy, Ann E. Nicholson, Kevin B. Korb, John McNeil
Frequency-based Rare Events Mining in Administrative Health Data
Jie Chen, Huidong Jin, Hongxing He, Christine M. O’Keefe, Ross Sparks, Graham Williams, Damien McAullay, Chris Kelman
Inferring ‘Therapeutic States’ of Patients from Community Electronic Prescribing Data
Jim Warren, Jan Stanek, Svetla Gadzhanova, Ivan Iankov, Gary Misan
Towards Role Based Hypothesis Evaluation for Health Data Mining
Anna Shillabeer, John F. Roddick
Research within the Privacy Regulations: Problems and Solutions for Database Custodians
Ea Mulligan, Wendy A. Rogers, Annette Braunack-Mayer

Anyone with a new Palm or Pocket PC (Windows Mobile) PDA always wants to get stuck in and load it up with all the free software they can get their hands on. Of course, most of that software gets deleted but some are gems that will stay the course.

Here’s a list of some free medical PDA software apps that are particularly good:

1. Epocrates (Free Version)

This is a very popular drug database. It used to be just US drug names but they have recently released several international versions including UK and France.

2. Diagnosaurus

Differential diagnosis software. Search by disease, symptom or organ system.

3. Johns Hopkins Antibiotics Guide

Palm Only

This is a handheld version of the Johns Hopkins POC-IT Antibiotic (ABX) Guide

5. NLM Mobile

Several software applications from the National Library of Medicine.

Includes:

• MD on Tap - search Medline on your PDA
• PubMed for Handhelds Website
• AIDSinfo’s PDA Tools
• Wireless System for Emergency Responders (WISER)
• NCBI Bookshelf

6. ACC Pocket Guidelines

The complete set of Pocket Guideline materials adapted and enhanced for mobile devices from the full text version of ACC/AHA Practice Guidelines.

7. MedMath

Palm Only

Medical Calculator for Palm OS PDAs. Designed for rapid calculation of equations used in adult internal medicine.

8. Archimedes

Free medical calculator from Skyscape. Useful if you use a Windows Mobile device and can’t use MedMath.

9. EBM 2 Go

EBM tools, databases and guidelines.