A multicentre PDA project to support the clinical decision process

In the Netherlands, the departments of cardiology of all academic hospitals work together under the auspices of the Interuniversity Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands (ICIN). In many of these ICIN centers, PDAs are used to support the cardiologist in his daily practice. In these centers PDA versions are being developed of relevant clinical guidelines. Also, medical PDA applications are evaluated and distributed locally. To give a boost to these local efforts, representatives of 5 ICIN centers have started a PDA collaboration project, with the purpose to jointly develop or find PDA applications to support the clinical decision process. Relevant cardiology guidelines, such as the European (ESC) and national guidelines have been made available for the PDA. In addition, we have selected PDA applications that will be used in all centers, such as risk-prediction software, medical calculators and drug reference software. All PDA clinical guidelines and medical applications have been made available for download on a special Website.