Dr. Jose Sumaquial, FAACP, is a Family Practitioner at Beale Air Force Base. This past June he completed a year as Chief Resident at St. Mary's Hospital in New Jersey. He is unusually dependent on his Pocket PC and in this article we follow him through a typical day to highlight the various uses that can help save time and work.
"My iPAQ alarm goes off faithfully at 5:30 a.m. Luckily it's loud enough to wake me. My Palm V alarm wouldn't even stir me. Soon afterwards, I'm in the car and off to work. Once in the hospital, I go through my daily routine of checking on my patients and their progress overnight. This includes checking their morning blood work values and vital signs over the previous night. I document these in my customized HanDBase database which allows me to track my patients' information. The best part about this software is its cross-platform compatibility with Palm OS machines so I can beam information to my Palm-toting colleagues. Once done here, I use the same HanDBase database to construct my patient progress notes. To speed data entry into my Pocket PC, I pull out my Stowaway Keyboard for the iPAQ. This nifty keyboard is slightly larger than my iPAQ but folds out to a laptop computer-size keyboard. For the final touch, I print my completed patient progress note on the local laser printer via infrared using PrintPocketCE software."
Dr. Jose Sumaquial with his invaluable assistant.
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