A Five-in-One Solution for Nursing

Nursing Central 3.1. $149.95. For Palm OS 3.5 or higher, Palm HotSync 4.1 or higher, Pocket PC 2000 or later and Blackberry with latest browser. Unbound Medicine, www.unboundmedicine.com.

Reviewed by Ann St. Germain, NP, an adult and women's health nurse practitioner at The University of Texas Health Services in Houston and assistant clinical professor at Texas Woman's University in Houston.

Nursing Central is a software library that includes Taber's 20th edition Cyclopedic Dictionary, Davis's Drug Guide, Davis's Laboratory and Diagnostics, and Diseases and Disorders. Unbound has smartly taken its success with its previous products and implemented it into this product. (Davis's Drug Guide won the Handango Champion Award in 2005 and Davis's Lab and Diagnostics won the American Journal of Nursing's Book of the Year award.) Add to these a disease and disorders program and a MEDLINE search, and you have a great support system for student nurse practitioners and practicing NPs.

The program was easy to download to both PC and my Palm T2 (I used the memory card support). Once on the home page of your PDA, you see a menu of the programs stated above. The Taber's Guide contains 56,000 definitions, 8,400 new terms, an audio feature for pronunciation of most words, and 60 appendices. The Web version is stocked with 700 illustrations, 500 in color. This is nice, but you don't always know which term will have an illustration.

The drug guide contains 4,600 trade and generic drugs, 50 classes, 700 combinations, and 30 common herbal preparations.

I was skeptical about this program at first. However, once I used it and allowed some of my students to try it and give me their input, I became a believer. The program provides a quarterly update on the latest FDA-approved medications as well. The Davis's Lab and Diagnostic test program contains 398 monographs and 664 tests. The Disease and Disorders guide reviews more than 270 diseases and provides the corresponding diagnosis-related group.

Finally, the MEDLINE feature provides the ability to search the PUBMED database. The browser gives a table of contents for each journal selected, along with some abstracts. MEDLINE provides full-text articles only when available from PUBMED, otherwise some full text viewing may require a subscription. To determine whether full text is available, just check the box that says "more online." After the next sync, you are linked to the full citation or publisher text.

When you consider the price of these programs separately, you would be spending much more than the asking price of this combined program.

At first I thought this suite was another "how to" quick guide for nursing. However, I can say after using the program and allowing my students access to it, I believe it is a beneficial tool.

Contact Management Database

ACT! 2006. $199.99. For PC and PalmOS 4.0 or higher PDA. Sage Software, www.act.com.

Reviewed by Sue Babcock, NP, a family nurse practitioner who specializes in primary care and urgent care and is on faculty at Oregon Health & Science University in Klamath Falls, Ore.

ACT! 2006 is designed primarily for customer and sales contact management. The program provides access for up to 10 users on the same database - access to working with contacts and scheduling your day. ACT! can also be used to create written documents, coordinate e-mail, prioritize activities, track contacts and synchronize users.

The program is easily downloaded onto your PC and PDA and has user-friendly components. It also comes with an in-depth user guide for the more complex applications. From the date of registration, Sage Software provides 60 days of free support.

I primarily accessed this program through my PC so that I could familiarize myself with the various applications. It is simple to import data from Outlook, Palm Desktop and other files. I was a little hesitant to sync my PDA to a new application with my PC before I understood the software. Not to worry, ACT! applications easily loaded onto my PDA, and I used them with ease.

I have extensive experience using a PDA as a tool for clinical practice, as well as for managing my date book and daily appointments inside and outside the clinic world. However, as a provider and as a nursing instructor, I found little use for the ACT! 2006 software. The details of my day are managed through established desktop calendars and systems software.

I shared the ACT! information with NP colleagues and various other professionals. Notably, those most excited about the capabilities of this product were the many pharmaceutical representatives who must manage particular schedules, inventory and contacts. ACT! 2006 by Sage Software seems most suitable for sales representatives instead of patient management.