Creating and utilizing a multimedia dermatology medical record for a PocketPC personal digital assistant.

Personal digital assistants are lightweight computers that capture and display data via tapping on their screens with a stylus and are easily linked to desktop and network computers. They have been used in medicine for a variety of purposes, and many believe personal digital assistant use can improve the provision of medical care. The author created a multimedia dermatology electronic medical record for a PocketPC (Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA) personal digital assistant that contains patient images, tables of phototherapy, laboratory and systemic medication data, and typed chart notes. Such a record can be created and utilized but requires more time to assemble than a handwritten note, mostly due to capturing and organizing images. Future challenges involve streamlining record assembly, integrating multimedia records with hospital and office medical records, and assessing how having multimedia data available might affect care.