Design and evaluation of a personal digital assistant-based alerting service for clinicians

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Publication Type pre-print
School or College School of Medicine
Department Biomedical Informatics
Creator Mitchell, Joyce A.
Other Author Johnson, E. Diane; Pancoast, Paul E.; Shyu, Chi- Ren
Title Design and evaluation of a personal digital assistant-based alerting service for clinicians
Date 2004-01-01
Description Purpose: This study describes the system architecture and user acceptance of a suite of programs that deliver information about newly updated library resources to clinicians' personal digital assistants (PDAs). Description: Participants received headlines delivered to their PDAs alerting them to new books, National Guideline Clearinghouse guidelines, Cochrane Reviews, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Alerts, as well as updated content in UpToDate, Harrison's Online, Scientific American Medicine, and Clinical Evidence. Participants could request additional information for any of the headlines, and the information was delivered via email during their next synchronization. Participants completed a survey at the conclusion of the study to gauge their opinions about the service. Results/Outcome: Of the 816 headlines delivered to the 16 study participants' PDAs during the project, Scientific American Medicine generated the highest proportion of headline requests at 35%. Most users of the PDA Alerts software reported that they learned about new medical developments sooner than they otherwise would have, and half reported that they learned about developments that they would not have heard about at all. While some users liked the PDA platform for receiving headlines, it seemed that a Web database that allowed tailored searches and alerts could be configured to satisfy both PDA-oriented and email-oriented users.
Type Text
Publisher Medical Library Association
Volume 92
Issue 4
First Page 438
Last Page 444
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Language eng
Bibliographic Citation Johnson, E. D., Pancoast, P. E., Mitchell, J. A., & Shyu, C. R. (2004). Design and evaluation of a personal digital assistantbased alerting service for clinicians. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 92(4), 438-44.
Rights Management (c)Medical Library Association
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 598,380 bytes
Identifier uspace,17835
ARK ark:/87278/s6ns1cp7
Setname ir_uspace
ID 708146
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6ns1cp7