Acceptance of Pdas by Medical Students: Lessons for Future Physicians (original) (raw)
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Personal digital assistants (PDAs) have become a popular tool among physicians and medical trainees. PDAs are used for various purposes by healthcare professions and students. However most of these users are physicians, and the devices assist them in patient tracking, documentation, clinical decision making in order to decrease the number of adverse events and enhance their learning. PDAs seem to
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Patient Attitudes Toward Physician Use of Tablet Computers in the Exam Room
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Health information technology (HIT) is seen as part of the solution to improving the quality, efficiency, and cost of health care-particularly in primary care. HIT can encompass such technologies as electronic health records (EHRs), computer physician order entry (CPOE), electronic prescribing, and computerized electronic alerts. The Future of Family Medicine project explicitly calls for advanced information systems (including an EHR) and also supports using clinical systems for decision support, electronic visits, and Web-based information as keys to improving the quality and efficiency of primary care. 1 Yet, it is often noted that our health care system is one of the last "industries" to adopt widespread technology systems such as those seen in banking, airlines, and grocery stores. Despite widespread national support for HIT improvements and implementation in our health care system, little is known about the types of systems that will have the most benefit. To make matters even more challenging, the types of devices used to run these HIT systems are rapidly changing and include Internetbased systems, desktop computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), smartphones, and the more-recent tablet computers (including the recently announced Apple ® iPad TM). The small size, mobility, easily shared screen, handwriting recognition, wireless connections, and powerful processing and recording capabilities of tablet PCs make them less intrusive than traditional desktop computers to doctor-patient interaction and potentially more useful to physicians and patients than PDAs or smartphones. However, the benefit of these new devices in the clinical setting might be limited if patients do not accept them. Previous literature on patient attitudes toward new computer-related technology suggests that patient opinions are generally positive toward computers used by physicians, except for some reservations about privacy. 2-10 Overall, patient satisfaction has been noted, even in studies completed with PDAs in emergency room settings 11 and in surveys of parents of children receiving health care. 12 Another study on PDAs in a low-income university clinic found that only 10% of patients disliked the idea of a handheld computer in
Journal of Healthcare Engineering, 2012
This cross-sectional study explores physicians' attitudes and beliefs about the use of personal digital assistant (PDA) in the context of other health information technology (HIT) use and HITbased applications safety in ambulatory care practices. The relationship of PDA use and patient safety is also explored. Ambulatory care physicians in Nebraska and South Dakota were surveyed from July to November of 2007 using a modified Dillman technique. Respondents were in one of three groups: PDA Users (those using a PDA for patient care), Other Technology Users (those not using a PDA, but using other technologies for patient care), and Non-Users (those not using any technology for patient care). PDAs are used by 43% of responding physicians, who tend to be younger and salaried. PDA Users exposed to PDAs during training continued use in practice. PDA Users believed the device enabled them to provide more efficient and better care, reduce errors, and improve patient safety.
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Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 2006
The purpose of this study was to identify trends in the utilization and acceptance of handheld computers (personal digital assistants) among medical students during preclinical and clinical training. We surveyed 366 medical students and collected information on computer expertise, current handheld computer use, predicted future use, and user acceptance. Handheld computers were primarily used for personal applications by students during their preclinical training and as drug references and clinical calculators during their clinical training. In the future, all participants predicted they would use handheld computers at significantly higher rates and on a broader range of medical applications. The adoption of handheld computing was independent of user satisfaction. Those with more clinical experience were less satisfied with handheld computers, suggesting that the expectations of the more experienced users were not met. The lack of institutional support was seen as a key limitation.
A review and a framework of handheld computer adoption in healthcare
International Journal of Medical Informatics, 2005
Wide adoption of mobile computing technology can potentially improve information access, enhance workflow, and promote evidence-based practice to make informed and effective decisions at the point of care. Handheld computers or personal digital assistants (PDAs) offer portable and unobtrusive access to clinical data and relevant information at the point of care. This article reviews the literature on issues related to adoption of PDAs in health care and barriers to PDA adoption. Studies showed that PDAs were used widely in health care providers' practice, and the level of use is expected to rise rapidly. Most care providers found PDAs to be functional and useful in areas of documentation, medical reference, and access to patient data. Major barriers to adoption were identified as usability, security concerns, and lack of technical and organizational support. PDAs offer health care practitioners advantages to enhance their clinical practice. However, better designed PDA hardware and software applications, more institutional support, seamless integration of PDA technology with hospital information systems, and satisfactory security measures are necessary to increase acceptance and wide use of PDAs in healthcare.
Institutional Support for Handheld Computing: Clinical and Educational Lessons Learned
Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 2010
Handheld computing devices, or personal digital assistants (PDAs), are used often in the health care setting. They provide a convenient way to store and carry either personal or reference information and can be used to accomplish other tasks associated with patient care. This article reports clinical and educational lessons learned from a longitudinal institutional initiative designed to provide medical students with PDAs to facilitate patient care and assist with clinical learning.
JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 2014
Background: Despite their increasing popularity, little is known about how users perceive mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs in medical contexts. Available studies are often restricted to evaluating the success of specific interventions and do not adequately cover the users' basic attitudes, for example, their expectations or concerns toward using mobile devices in medical settings. Objective: The objective of the study was to obtain a comprehensive picture, both from the perspective of the patients, as well as the doctors, regarding the use and acceptance of mobile devices within medical contexts in general well as the perceived challenges when introducing the technology. Methods: Doctors working at Hannover Medical School (206/1151, response 17.90%), as well as patients being admitted to this facility (213/279, utilization 76.3%) were surveyed about their acceptance and use of mobile devices in medical settings. Regarding demographics, both samples were representative of the respective study population. GNU R (version 3.1.1) was used for statistical testing. Fisher's exact test, two-sided, alpha=.05 with Monte Carlo approximation, 2000 replicates, was applied to determine dependencies between two variables. Results: The majority of participants already own mobile devices (doctors, 168/206, 81.6%; patients, 110/213, 51.6%). For doctors, use in a professional context does not depend on age (P=.66), professional experience (P=.80), or function (P=.34); gender was a factor (P=.009), and use was more common among male (61/135, 45.2%) than female doctors (17/67, 25%). A correlation between use of mobile devices and age (P=.001) as well as education (P=.002) was seen for patients. Minor differences regarding how mobile devices are perceived in sensitive medical contexts mostly relate to data security, patients are more critical of the devices being used for storing and processing patient data; every fifth patient opposed this, but nevertheless, 4.8% of doctors (10/206) use their devices for this purpose. Both groups voiced only minor concerns about the credibility of the provided content or the technical reliability of the devices. While 8.3% of the doctors (17/206) avoided use during patient contact because they thought patients might be unfamiliar with the devices, (25/213) 11.7% of patients expressed concerns about the technology being too complicated to be used in a health context. Conclusions: Differences in how patients and doctors perceive the use of mobile devices can be attributed to age and level of education; these factors are often mentioned as contributors of the problems with (mobile) technologies. To fully realize the potential of mobile technologies in a health care context, the needs of both the elderly as well as those who are educationally disadvantaged need to be carefully addressed in all strategies relating to mobile technology in a health context.