Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) were first introduced in 1992 with the Apple Newton. They have since evolved into powerful hand‐held computers, increasingly popular amongst healthcare professionals (in the USA, 40% of doctors report using a PDA). Most obviously, PDAs are devices for organizing schedules and making notes, so word‐processing applications, spreadsheets, presentation packages, databases, and handwriting recognition applications are widely available for the most popular PDA devices: Palm and Pocket PC.
PDAs are subject to continuous improvements to their capabilities, as a result of which, the latest PDAs have processor speeds of up to 624 MHz and storage capacities of 80 GB or more (with memory expansion). In other words, the continuing miniaturization and standardization of PDA technology now enables the production of inexpensive machines (good ones can be bought for about £100) with speeds and data‐storage capabilities that are more than adequate for image manipulation and/or analysis. Likewise, improvements in LCD technology have resulted in PDA screens with excellent colour‐depth and quality.
We may object that PDAs do not have the functionality to manage complete medical records (at least not at present), but they have undoubtedly emerged as excellent tools for managing clinical information and utilizing it at the point of care. A PDA can be much more than an address book and diary, it can now become the primary tool to enable access to medical literature and automatically updated databases, at the time and place they are most required. Remote patient‐monitoring and tracking, and continuous remote access to medical education (in the USA, two out of three medical students now use PDAs), are just a couple of indications of the possibilities raised by increased use of PDAs.
It hardly needs saying that for any technology holding patient records, confidentiality is the most fundamental issue of concern. Simple procedures, such as password protection, and using a patient’s hospital number instead of their name, must become standard practice for anyone using a PDA, and medical illustrators ought to be the best‐informed advocates for such good practice in any healthcare context. However, the issue that comes hard on the heels of confidentiality is how we can use this technology to improve the effectiveness of modern healthcare. This raises a pointed question: how well do medical illustrators understand (and, indeed, respect) the capabilities of PDAs? Will we, as medical illustrators, lead the way in demonstrating responsible use of them to our colleagues? Our challenge as communication professionals is to understand modern PDAs, and model effective use of this and other information technologies.