Look at a new reference tool for the ICU
October 2006
Column Editor - Tom Stibolt
Skyscape has recently released Pocket Advisor – ICU Management. This is a reference tool for both the PalmOS and the Windows Mobile platform. It covers the full range of issues that a clinician might face when treating a patient in the ICU. The reference has nearly 300 topics ranging from Abdominal Injuries to Weaning from Mechanical Ventilation. This reference tool was originally developed by Dr. J. Christopher Farmer of Mayo Clinic and Dr. Michael H. Wall of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
Each topic has sections beginning with “First Things First” which covers the immediate management options followed by “History and Physical”, “Diagnostic Tests”, “General Management”, “Specific Treatment”, “Ongoing Assessment”, and “Complications”. These are followed by a screen showing who authored the section and then the full title. There is a control shown on the right of the screen on the screenshot below for moving from section to section.
There is no control for displaying the full title. Sections are individually authored by one or two physicians. There appears to be a large number of authors but no information provided about how many. In addition, the author tab does not identify the position or affiliation of the authors nor does it show the date of the most recent revision of the section.
The offerings can be listed in a “main index” format, a “diseases index” format and a table of contents format, all shown below. These seem to differ in the level of detail displayed with the diseases index taking you to a main offering that mentions the disease in question. There is also a listing by drug reference, which links to the topic where a drug is mentioned.
The topics marked with diamonds take you to a list of related topics that, as shown below, can be quite long.
One surprise is that at least one topic, Acid-Base Calculations, is not an actual link and goes to the following topic, Acid-Base Disorders which does not have any calculations so I am presuming this is an error in the program. I have not discovered any others but I have only been working with this program for about a week. The concise topics should prove useful in an ICU setting.
It is available for $24.99 from Skyscape (www.skyscape.com) and is bundled at no additional cost with an ICD-9 coder and the previously free Archimedes medical calculator which now costs $24.95.
The opinions rendered herein are those of the author; no representation, warranty of guarantee of fitness is either made or implied.
