Integration of Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) Devices into the Military Healthcare Clinic Environment

The business drivers within managed care are mandating that physicians have point-of-care access to medical reference data, patient specific data, formularies, treatment protocols, and billingcoding information. One emerging technology that has the potential to provide this access with little economic investment is the mobile Personal Digital Assistant. The authors address a variety of wireless technologies and security concerns regarding real-time access to patient data. The family practice staff at the Naval Hospital Lemoore explored and contrasted the capabilities of commercially available PDAs, wireless interfaces, and medical software applications to ascertain their value within the Military Health System. A production-ready interface between the Composite Health Care System and the Nutrition Management Information Server demonstrates the potential for eliminating the difficulties associated with documenting patient encounters and capturing charges. Survey tools generate a requirements standard for deployment of this technology within the Military Health System on an enterprise-wide scale with a hybrid approach to packaging based on functionality. The authors recommend the Military Health System embrace this technology as a means to realize its vision of best value health services.