1. Medicine at your Fingertips
PDAs @
m.h.packer@bsms.ac.uk

2. PDAs
(Personal Digital Assistants)
• Small, typically handheld devices used for the:
– collection
– retrieval
– management
– exchange of information
– Diary, address book, e-mail, notes, expenses etc.
• Benefits:
– Portability
– Low unit cost
– Ease of use

3. PDA Projects in Medical Education
• Many projects in the USA
– Harvard
– Buffalo
– Stanford etc.
• Some projects in the UK
– Leicester – Junior Drs
– Oxford - RAMBLE

4. PDAs @ BSMS
• Aim
– To use PDAs as an enabling technology to
facilitate student learning, information retrieval
and information exchange between both
students and students and BSMS

5. The Challenges
• Demonstrable benefit to users rather than
succumbing to the seduction of technology
• Providing services specific to the needs of
BSMS students and staff
• Ease of use
• Low management overhead

6. Management Strategy
• Objective
– A PDA for every BSMS student from year 3 onwards
configured so that the device delivers value to the
student and BSMS through:
• the provision of a suite of carefully selected static applications
which provide core reference material to the students on
demand
• connectivity and access to studentcentral through the
provision of the necessary backend systems
• the ability to synchronise with the BSMS systems to facilitate
mobile working
• the ability to work with dynamic data in real time via wireless
networking

7. Management Strategy
Benefits to users
• Content is king
– The provision of content and materials which deliver value to the students
and staff is key to the success of the project.
– Information delivers value - technology only enables - without a positive
and pressing reason to use the technology the project will wither.
• Content selection
– Content selected by the faculty and BSMS information professionals to
reflect and complement the curriculum
– Used focus groups of faculty and students to define needs and useful
applications
– Content develops as students move through the course
• Integration into the curriculum
– In order to make PDAs meaningful to the students they must be integrated
into the curriculum as tools which are required to be used.
– There should be PDA specific tasks and functions.

8. Management Strategy
• Staff buy-in
– Staff must see an educational benefit in the solution via the
applications as well as the technology.
• Student buy-in
– Students must see a benefit in the solution via the applications as
well as the technology. The PDA needs to deliver real value to
them educationally and personally far in excess of their
commitment in terms of time and resources.
• Training
– user training is mandatory
– training can be basic but must be hands on
– training should cover specific aspects of the applications
– training should cover the management of the device e.g. charging,
backing up etc.
– training and good practice need to be reinforced through further
scheduled sessions

9. Management Strategy
• Provision of equipment
– don’t give PDA’s to students. Evidence shows that he
student’s value and commitment to the PDA is related
to what the student paid for it.
• Technical support
– Provided by BSMS with support from Medhand and
Palm
• Backup
– Individuals are responsible for their own backups

10. Content
• Static - Preloaded e-books, reference works, programmes
and learning materials
• Delivered - Further materials delivered to the PDA by
synching providing material for mobile use and
interaction. The results of any interaction are uploaded the
next time the PDA is synchronised with the server.
• Dynamic - Material delivered to the PDA by a live
wireless connection, e.g. using a web-browser with which
users interact in real time to search for information or fill
in and submit a form
• Self made - Content created by the users for their own use
• Collaborative - Content created by the user for their own
use and sharing with colleagues

11. Technical Strategy
• Standards based approach
– basing the implementation around existing standards:
• a PDA platform independent system which is remains valid
when students are providing their own handhelds.
• a solution which is scaleable - it can be expanded and
developed to meet future needs
• a solution which is sustainable (today’s material can be used in
the future)
• Investment
– invest in the supporting backend systems, design and
development and infrastructure not in the handhelds
themselves.

12. Technical Strategy
• Integration with the PDAs own software
– Do not attempt to synchronise the academic applications or
channels with the PDAs own personal information management
(PIM) software as this proprietary
– Provide localised BSMS information
• PDA platform
– Aim to be platform agnostic in 12 months
• HMS are platform agnostic and a survey of their user base
showed 80% Palm and 20% Pocket PC (2004)
• Buffalo are platform specific and are 100% Palm
• Ease of use
– aim for a synch time of 60 seconds

13. The story so far…
• Student’s buy their own PDA
– 3 recommended models priced £130-299
– 4 short term loan PDA’s available
• BSMS provides the static content
– Dr Companion software
– Multi-platform SD card
• Palm, Pocket Windows, Mac OSX, Windows
• >140 BSMS students in years 3 and 4 have their
own PDA and a copy of the Dr Companion
software

14. The story so far cont’d…
• BSMS providing BSMS localised content
– Working on Module handbooks for Year 5
• Student’s sync their PDA with their BSMS
Outlook e-mail
• Increased ease of use - browser-like interface
– Consistent across platforms; Palm, Mac OSX, Windows
• Ongoing collaborative development BSMS/
Medhand

15. The near future…
• BSMS provides more BSMS localised content
– Term calendars and timetables
– BSMS databases
• ‘Push’ technology for updating material and
adding new material
• Delivered content via I/R and wireless synching
– studentcentral materials and other learning information
• Dynamic content via wireless/Bluetooth
connectivity
• New year 3 students

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