Using my Treo for CME (I)
I use my Windows Mobile Treo Pro for data – email, Internet access, instant messenger, RSS, multimedia. I keep voice on a separate line (my Centro in fact is my primary phone, organiser and where most of my medical applications reside). The TP with it’s data connectivity is an advantage when it comes to mobile CME. I thought I’d share some ways in which I use my TP in this area.
First of all, the humble email Inbox is an important gateway to CME. Journal TOCs and other updates from content providers get pushed to you via email so it’s always a handy way to be kept informed. I like push email using Gmail’s IMAP idle feature, and for Windows Mobile, the Flexmail client is able to make us of this feature so in effect my TP is like a Blackberry and I get push mail round the clock.
When an email with CME content comes with a browser link, I simply click on it in order to access further information.
Now for Windows mobile users, we are spoilt for choice when it comes to browsers. I have three available on my device – Pocket IE, Opera Mobile and Skyfire. There is a nifty utility called JZ Smartmort which allows you to pick and choose the browser either automatically or manually. In this video example, I click on a link from Clinical Care Options (CCO) and from there I select Skyfire as the brower since this one is capable of playing flash video.
Once the browser is launched it is a cinch to play the streaming lecture in flash format. The data connection is 3G and you are best advised to have a data plan otherwise such connections can get expensive if you are paying per Kb. The audio is quite smooth and Skyfire allows me to zoom in and out to view smaller text on the slides. I watched this 30 minute presentation on Myeloma over breakfast!
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About the author, Alan: Alan Teh is a Malaysian Physician who specialises in Hematology-Oncology & Stem cell Transplantation. He has been using Palm PDAs since 1997 and is absolutely reliant on them. His current PDA is a Palm Pre and is a strong advocate of the webOS platform, Palm's latest operating system. Caught the blogging bug in 2004 and has been addicted ever since… |
