FSU Maguire Medical Library Blog

Now Available! Disease Information in Epocrates Online

I am excited to share today that Disease Information for Epocrates Online is now available. You can access it by going to the Maguire Medical Library web site, clicking on Epocrates Online in the Resource Names list (which will open a new window), and then click on the “DISEASES” tab at the top of the screen in Epocrates Online. This same disease information has previously only been available to Epocrates Mobile/PDA users, so it is a welcome addition to our collection of electronic resources for the web here at the FSU College of Medicine. Remember, if accessing library resources such as this from off-campus, you will need to log in to the College of Medicine EZ Proxy first.

 

Disease Information from Epocrates Online*

Easily find clinical answers to your questions about hundreds of diagnoses, with evidence-based content from the BMJ Group, publishers of the British Medical Journal.

-          Search by disease name/first letter, specific topic, or category.

-          Review key highlights or detailed diagnosis and treatment information, including:

• Basics – Definition, Vignette, Epidemiology, Etiology

•  Diagnosis – Approach, Risk Factors, History & Exam, Tests, Differential (critical differential diagnoses highlighted), Criteria, Screening

• Treatment – Approach, Tx Details, Emerging Tx, Prevention

• Follow-up – Overview, Complications

• References and evidence scores

•  Image Library

-          Easily access more in-depth information as needed

• Review convenient summaries for key information

• Choose whether to see additional details, references, and images

*As published on Epocrates web site, 3/1/2010

Now Earn CME Credit on Harrison's Practice

Harrison's Practice announces the launch of point-of-care Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits on Harrison’s Practice. This seamlessly embedded feature in Harrison’s Practice enables physicians and other health care providers to meet yearly continuing education requirements with information they find every day at work.
Read the press release here.

PLEASE NOTE To use the CME feature, you must remove and reinstall the PDA program from Harrison's Practice on your PDA. You can do this by visiting the PDA page from the top navigational bar on Harrison's Practice, or visit their help page.

DynaMed PDA Access Expanded

The list of PDAs supported by DynaMed has been expanded to include:

Palms

Pocket PC

Windows Smartphone

BlackBerry

iPhone

For details on the compatible PDAs, such as models and technical specifications, please review this information: http://www.ebscohost.com/dynamed/technical.php.

Epocrates Dx™ Disease Content Updated

The Epocrates Dx content in your handheld product has been significantly updated with new content from the 5-Minute Clinical Consult 2008 .

To install this update for free, simply AutoUpdate (sync while connected to the Internet).

Update Highlights:

• 69 new topics, including Bipolar I Disorder, Nicotine Addiction, Vitamin D Deficiency, Eustachian Tube Dysfunction, and Spinal Stenosis
• Updates to many existing topics — such as Gonorrhea, Mononucleosis, and Pseudomembranous Colitis — including expanded coverage of complementary and alternative medicine

If you need assistance with your upgrade, please call Epocrates Customer Support at 1-800-230-2150, or email us at goldsupport@epocrates.com.

Why Can’t I Use the Internet Browser on My Cell Phone/PDA to Access the Library Web Site and the Online Resources?

This is going to become a common question we receive from our faculty and students who have purchased a cell phone/PDA (iPhone, AT&T Tilt…) with unlimited data transfer packages. As they learn to use the internet browsers on their handheld, they will want to access our library resources online instead of having to download and install individual software medical references on the handheld.  The same desire might come from people using the 802.11 wireless features on the PDA.

There is no short and sweet answer to this issue, so I will attempt to explain it without a whole lot of jargon.  There are a number of factors that currently impede using these resources on the PDA using an internet browser like Internet Explorer or Safari.

1.       The design of these web sites.  Web pages are designed to be used on computers with large monitors and on computers with a lot of plug-ins like Flash and Java Scripts.  There are a few resources that have recognized that people are accessing their sites with PDAs and have a system in place that checks the type of device accessing the site and redirects to a web page formatted to be viewed on the small screen if the device is a PDA.  Examples:  Google’s normal site http://www.google.com compared to their PDA site which comes up on my cell phone http://www.google.com/pda.  Another is the Weather Channel’s http://www.weather.com versus their PDA site http://cingular.xhtml.weather.com/xhtml/cc/32301 . 

a.       The Library Web Site.  We have not formatted our library web page to work on a PDA or small screen.  Neither do we yet have the resources to detect the type of device accessing the site and redirect it to a PDA formatted library web page, even if we had one.  Therefore, the links that use Java scripts to call up sites do not work on the PDA.  You can click on one of the pages like Drug Resources and follow the hard links from that page.

b.       The resources web sites.  As far as I know, none of our library subscription web resources have developed web sites that work on the PDA.  Epocrates is in the development phase for a site that will work on an iPhone, but it may not be functioning yet, nor is it clear that this access will be a part of our negotiated library subscription. You might have to pay more to use it.  I tried it on my computer and it did not work. It would not pull up drug information. The URL is http://m.epocrates.com/iphone They are also developing a product that runs on the iPhone that will need to be downloaded and installed like our other PDA resources.

2.       IP authentication of subscription resources for access without passwords.  If you are not in one of our college of medicine buildings, logged in to our CoM network, you must use EZProxy to fool the resources into thinking you are on campus to get into all of our subscription Library resources.  This is very clunky on a PDA.  First of all, the link to the form where you sign in does not work on the PDA.  You must manually type in https://ezproxy.med.fsu.edu/login to get to this page.  Then you can get into the subscription resources, using links from the library site, but you can’t use them because they don’t fit on the screen, and have too many fancy programs running in the background to work on the PDA.

 

My recommendation for the immediate future is to try to use a regular PDA like the HP iPAQ or a Windows Mobile (AT&T Tilt) or Palm (Palm Treo) cell phone/PDA and download and install the resources linked on our web page http://www.med.fsu.edu/library/PDADocuments.asp.  We will let you know if any of our resources becomes available in handheld device formatted web sites that can be viewed in the handheld internet browser.  iPhone lovers, keep your fingers crossed that Apple’s release of the iPhone source code to developers of handheld software results in the availability of iPhone versions of your favorites.  Epocrates is going to start that movement.

Nancy Clark

Director of Medical Informatics Education

nancy.clark@med.fsu.edu

Problem with PDA and Upcoming Time Change

Some PDA users have noticed that appointments and holidays on their PDAs appear are incorrect. Appointments are off by an hour and holidays along with other “all day” events are off by a day. This problem is associated with new Daylight Savings Time date changes. Most of the incorrect events are isolated to the time period between March 9th and April 4th. The first thing you should do is check your PDA to see if appointments and events within this time period are correct. If they are not correct, download and install the DST patch found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949168/en-us. If your PDA is configured to sync with Outlook, you can install the file attached to this message directly on the PDA. To do so, you need to open the message on your PDA, save the file to your My Documents folder on the PDA, go to File Explorer and install the file by opening it. If you find that problems still exist after you install the patch, contact the IT help desk. If you are assigned to a regional campus, contact the IT support person for the regional campus.

Downloading POCKETConsult PDA Software

You must now create a personal account in MDConsult before you are allowed to download the POCKETConsult PDA Software.  You can do this by clicking on the "Create Account" link found in the upper right hand menu bar on the MDConsult or FIRSTConsult websites.  You will then have to also create an account for yourself at the POCKETConsult site before downloading can begin.

To access the POCKETConsult site, click on the "PDA Websites" link found on the library's main page.  If you are off campus, be sure to click on the "Off-Camus Access (EzProxy)" link first.

Currently, POCKETConsult contains 15 to 20% of the contents of the Differential Diagnoses and Medical Topics sections of the FIRSTConsult website.

Does Your Pocket PC Think It's 2014?

Since the New Year, Epocrates has heard from some customers with Pocket PC/Windows Mobile OS devices that their Epocrates application has suddenly expired. This is being caused by the date on their device jumping forward to 1/1/2014.

This is not an Epocrates-specific problem, but Epocrates would like to help you address the issue if it happens to you!

To reset your date and restore your Epocrates software:

   1. Close all your applications.
   2. Set the date on the device to the correct date (on the home screen, tap on the clock icon and then tap the down arrow next to the date to change it).
   3. Sync your device while connected to the Internet.

If you need help, please don't hesitate to contact the Epocrates Customer Support team:
Call Epocrates Toll-free at 1-800-230-2150 OR email Epocrates at support@epocrates.com.

New PDA Version of Geriatrics at Your Fingertips

A new PDA version of Geriatrics at Your Fingertips is available.  This replaces the older version.  To download the newest version, click on the "PDA Websites" link found in the middle column of the library's main page and look for Geriatrics at Your Fingertips under "PDA Products."  If you are off campus, be sure to click on the "Off-Campus Access (EZProxy)" link first.

InfoRetriever Update

Clinicians using InfoRetriever on a handheld device will find the new and improved interface easier to use and more intuitive than ever before. Some of these enhancements include:

1. Updated navigation to help you move around the product with ease
2. Increase or decrease the font display based on your personal preference with the click of a button
3. Less scrolling makes it easier to navigate InfoRetriever on your handheld device
4. Refine your search results to pinpoint information even further

Other Recent Enhancements ... Using InfoRetriever on a Handheld is even easier with Auto Updating. Now you can check for content updates each time you sync your PDA. InfoRetriever is now able to automatically update all PDA users who sync with a with Microsoft Windows® desktop PC. To start automating your InfoRetriever update process you must re-install the new updated file for Palm or Pocket PC one last time. For more detailed information on the installation process, visit the support section of the InfoRetriever web-site.