The iPhone is a new convergent device recently announced by Apple Inc. The device will incorporate a mobile phone, an iPod, an email client, web browser and various other ‘widgets’ designed to help you manage your daily life.

Convergent devices like this are not new and have been used by doctors for many years now. I’ve been using a convergent phone-come-PDA for many years now and am currently the owner of a Windows Mobile i-Mate K-JAM.

What makes the iPhone special is that it seems to have caught the imagination of tech-savvy doctors in a meme similar to that created by the old Palm PDAs of the late 90s and early 2000s.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a slight hitch in the plan at the moment. According to some reports, the iPhone will be a ‘closed’ system and users will not be able to install 3rd party applications.

Does this mean no medical software? Well, it looks that way at the moment but there’s no technical reason why Apple can’t start working with the medical software companies to produce apps that will work on the iPhone. According to David Pogue, this isn’t going to happen, but there has been no official word on this yet.

Another alternative is to deliver the apps through the browser interface. These could be off-line or live via the phone’s data connection. As most medical software apps are really just e-Books, then this is certainly a viable option.

We’re maintaining a list of free medical PDA software on the forum. If you know of a good app that we haven’t included pop over to the free medical PDA software thread and post up the app.

USBMIS (US Biomedical Information SYstems) is having a week-long sale ending on midnight Feb 06.

During the sale you can purchase Schwartz Principles of Surgery PDA edition and recieve 20% off.

To take advantage of this offer, visit www.usbmis.com

Unbound Medicine have announced the release of Emergency Medicine Manual for PDA.

The Emergency Medicine Manual is endorsed by the American College of Emergency Physicians and includes the following features:

• Step by Step Treatment Guidelines
• Pharmacological Considerations
• 123 Tables
• Bioterrorism and WMD, infectious diseases

The guide costs $49.95 and has a free trial available.

More details on UnboundMedicine.com

MediClear is a simple Creatinine Clearance calculator.

Download it from Freeware Palm (beware popups).

Source: Ectopic Brain

Canadian EMR has posted about the release of the Canadian version of Epocrates. There’s also some interesting commentary on whether PDA applications are still useful in the world of high speed internet access and EMR.

I think that PDA apps are still very useful but don’t come anywhere near to the usefulness of a connected system. Not all hospitals and clinics are connected yet though, far from it, so until the hospital IT systems are implemented, individual doctors can take it upon themselves to use technology in the form of stand alone PDA apps like Epocrates.

The Griffith’s 5 Minute Clinical Consult is one of the most popular references for residents, interns and junior doctors the world over.

In this post we’ll round up the various reviews on the net of Griffith’s 5 Minute Clinical Consult for Palm and Pocket PC (Windows Mobile) PDAs.

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Epocrates is one of the most popular medical applications for PDAs. Epocrates is a PDA based drug guide and is now available for both Palm and Pocket PC PDAs.

The aim of this post is to round up the various reviews on the net of Epocrates so here goes…

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