Please help us choose a handheld computer for medical research

[Kyle-]

Hi all,

I am a graduate researcher at the University of Utah Division of Occupational Therapy and a regular visitor to 1src. I am a member of a team developing a project which will provide handheld computers and training to people who have suffered traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Individuals with TBI often have difficulty remembering appointments, times to take medication, etc. We believe handheld computers will help them greatly with these tasks. We also like the additional functionality of handheld computers. Here in Salt Lake, for example, the Utah Transit Authority makes all bus and train schedules available in .prc format on their web site.

I am well acquainted with the PalmOS and I currently own (and love) a Sony TH55. But for our project, this type of multimedia / connected PDA is overkill. We need something with the following characteristics. First, it must be have back or front lighting so it is easy to read. Second, the larger the screen, the better (something like the Zire 21 is too small). Third, it must cost less than $250 US. Fourth, it needs to “just work.” Stability is very important and if the client should experience problems, customer support must be available and useful. As far as applications go, the built in calendar/datebook is most important to us. If there is a more useful (i.e. easy to use) freeware alternative, we would love to know. We do not need new machines – they may refurbished so long as they are still supported by customer support.

Of all the handheld computers made within the past three or four years, which do you think best fit our criteria and why? Windows or PalmOS? Palm, Sony, HP, Dell, etc? Would a camera be useful? What freeware applications do you think might be useful? Keep in mind that this will be brand new technology for the majority of people receiving the machines – they must be easy to use and perform with as little hassle as possible.

Thanks ahead for your input. I appreciate it and will keep you updated.

Sincerely,

Kyle

[SamuraiCatJB]

How many units are you talking about? Are you talking "trickle buy" (one or two at a time) or a fixed number up front? Dell loves extra PR work more-so than the others (they want to be the "friendly place") so you would have the best chance making a pitch to get discounts on multiple units or discounts on extended service, etc.

Given that this is a medical related application, I highly recommend making a pitch at the company selected for discounts in trade for advertising. I have severe AMP syndrome (Absent Minded Programmer, my own term -- probably AADD if I ever bothered to talk to a doctor about it), so I the same problems and same need. I will completely forget EVERYTHING if not for a handheld. I will gladly help with software selection and testing if you need more than the default applications. I use the TH55 for its organizer, though I fully understand that it is over-kill for what you need.

[Kyle-]

Thanks Samurai CatJB,

We plan to buy at least 35 handhelds. I have already reviewed Palm's pricing scales for educational and medical institutions. I will take your advice and contact HP. The total price of the project is not much of a concern because we will be writing grants to pay for the bulk of the PDAs which we will buy all at once. In the meantime though, we need to buy four or five units to train and practice on so we want to keep the costs below $250/handheld. We are constrained more by a lack of time and staff than a lack of money (for once).

Thanks again

Kyle-

[jjesusfreak01]

Thanks Samurai CatJB,

We plan to buy at least 35 handhelds. I have already reviewed Palm's pricing scales for educational and medical institutions. I will take your advice and contact HP. The total price of the project is not much of a concern because we will be writing grants to pay for the bulk of the PDAs which we will buy all at once. In the meantime though, we need to buy four or five units to train and practice on so we want to keep the costs below $250/handheld. We are constrained more by a lack of time and staff than a lack of money (for once).

Thaniks again

Kyle-
As far as Palm devices are concerned, you may be best off going with the new TE2. It retails at 249 right now, and has about everything you would need. There isnt really anything inbetween that Palm sells, but if you are adventurous, you may be able to get some Zodiac handhelds for your price range, though not directly from Tapwave at that price.

[Cyker]

I'd be inclined to dismiss PPC's straight away - They are all overkill for the given specs, and are not very intuitive, esp. compared to Palms. I may be biased however ;)

It's a pity the m-series and even the original Vx and III's are only available second-hand, and not totally supported by Palm any more; They'd be ideal I reckon - Extremely cheap and a *lot* more reliable and stable than any of the modern ones. They would be ideal IMHO.

Out of the current crop I'm with JJF; The T|E2 is probably the closest thing to the given requirements out of all the current PDAs that I know of. It's very overpowered considering what you need, but it's fairly stable, has good battery-life and the NVFS will be a godsend for when one of your patients inevitably forgets to charge the PDA ;)
You'll have to test it rigorously with any custom apps you put on 'tho; The NVFS is a double-edged sword, and has displayed some compatibility issues.

One thing you should note - I re-read the original post, and by the sound of it, what you mean by 'support' is a sortof hand-holding accessible by phone.
If this is the case, then no-matter what PDA you pick, you're gonna have problems because that kind of support is generally very poor from all sides to a point of being practically non-existant.
You'd be better off having a desginated 'expert' for them to call on, maybe with some basic training or something for the patients...?

[SoS]

there are probably thousands of TEs available either now or v soon, at ridiculously low prices. I saw somewhere that some retailer, may even have been amazon, had several thousand of the things in stock... given the specs of the TE2 you will be able to pick the TE up at very good prices now.....

[Kyle-]

Thanks JJF and Cyker,

You are right on about the NVFS. To be sure the clients charge their devices, we will most likely set a daily alarm that rings around bedtime and says "charge me" or something of the sort. Accidents will happen though and it would be great if the data could make it through a power failure.

I am not opposed to the older palms such as the III and Vx. They're so cheap that replacing them would be a breeze. I remember my old III having a backlight, do you know about the Vx? The only thing I'm concerned about with them is readability. The older Clies (SJ20) might be easier to read, but are they as reliable?

The TE2 sounds great, thanks for the suggestion. The more I think of it, the more I think a color screen would be nice. People might use it more. There's no doubt that color improves readability, too. I could even use a freeware program like "Colorize" to make it high contrast.

Yes, Cyker, you are right that "hand-holding" support would be ideal. For some reason I thought Palm had good support (perhaps that's because I've been using a Sony for a while now). As of now, we plan to teach ourselves and a group of grad students to use the handhelds over the summer. Then, in the fall, the grads will teach people with TBI how to use them as part of a technology class. This way, as many people as possible contact the technology. I am only worried about the support people will receive after they complete the program and are out "on their own." I *should* (perhaps with the help of some 1src members) be able to take care of most of their problems in the meantime.

I have had very little contact with PPCs. From what you say, they sound like a poor choice for our project. I get the gist that they are more menu-driven while Palms are more icon-driven. For us, the more intuitive, the better.

Thanks again,

Kyle-

[jjesusfreak01]

Have a big screen that pops up when they turn it on for the first time. it should read: "Go to 1src.com, and register there. Its the best support you can get for your handheld, and its free!"

[Kyle-]

Great point SoS. I hadn't even thought about the price of the TE falling. I'm going to keep a close eye on them.

Gracias,

Kyle-

[SoS]

Kyle-

you are doing a great job and Im sure all on 1src will be happy to give you all the help and advice they/we/I can!

the Force is surely with you.

Steve

[Kitten]

Kyle,

In regards to the older clie's I have an SJ22 and I've hard to hard reset only twice. Both times I was screwing around with new software and I deserved the problem. Other than that, it was incredibly reliable and great to read. It's the backup to my UX50 for now.

[Vishalca]

Kyle, for your requirements, I would have to agree with SoS, and go with the Tungsten E; not only would they be very economical, they would serve the purpose quite well.

[daver]

Thanks Samurai CatJB,

We plan to buy at least 35 handhelds. I have already reviewed Palm's pricing scales for educational and medical institutions. I will take your advice and contact HP. The total price of the project is not much of a concern because we will be writing grants to pay for the bulk of the PDAs which we will buy all at once. In the meantime though, we need to buy four or five units to train and practice on so we want to keep the costs below $250/handheld. We are constrained more by a lack of time and staff than a lack of money (for once).

Thanks again

Kyle-Kyle,

At my university (University of British Columbia), the Computer Science Department has a project currrently working on patients suffering from brain damage from strokes and other ailments of the like. I was reading on their project, and they use HP iPAQs for the same purposes as you. HP almost donated the iPAQs to the project as apparently they believe in helping out in whatever way they can in medical aid (don't know if this is true?). A good friend of my brother is one of the graduate students involved in this project. Apparently the grad students managed to make a deal with HP - $100 CAD per unit (HP iPAQ 1945 at the time). Another reason why the project members were more inclined to use PPCs rather than Palm Pilots is because of their internal design: the programs that the project members were making are obviously based for Windows, so the Windows Mobile platform made it much easier to go back and forth between PC and handheld.

I know many of us are anti-PPC, and others are pro-PPC, but in this special case, it's not about what people like so we need to throw our likes and dislikes out the window. This about which device will better suit the needs of the patients, the project's goals, and future results leading to whatever medical advances.

Kyle, if your group will require results through constant communication between computer and handhelds, then I suggest going for PPCs. It sounds like Hewlett Packard may still support medical research projects and might work with your group for cheap PDAs. Granted, the PDAs they may provide might be overkill processor wise, but at least you don't have to worry about slow processing of whatever you may be doing. Since you won't be installing an array of applications, device crashes probably won't be a problem for your project.

I you would like more information about how the project went, you can go find some stuff in the PDF:
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~kmoffatt/moffatt-2004-thesis.pdf

They don't explain how they got the PPCs through HP, but they explain pretty well how they used the PPCs.

Kyle, best of luck with your research, and hope you get what you're looking for!!

daver

[Kyle-]

I've always know you guys were a helpful bunch, but you've blown me away. Thanks a million and I'll keep you posted.

Kyle-

[daver]

bit of a tangent, but I just noticed that I went through the same line of Clies as you did!!!

SJ20 -> TJ37 -> TH55

[depret]

PDA Evaluation Outline
------------------------------
I would do the following:
- Pick 2 PDA models.
- Get 2 or 3 of each model.
- Form 2 teams by model.
- Make it a competition of teams.

Competition to include:
a. setup
b. software install
c. recovery from hard reset
d. give PDA to control group (CG)
e. team phone support to CG for a-c

Repeat the above after:
- Switching PDAs between teams.
- new CG.

Scoring (TBR): Choose your own but choose one.
+100 = Only Documents
+75 = Internet Procedure
+50 = Only Built-in software
-25 = 3rd Party software required
-50 = Help from 1src during testing

Recommendation
-TE2+(keyboard?)
-TC+SD
-TH55+MS(no keyboard but CO is similar to ESI Planner)
-SJ20+MS+(keyboard)
-HP 6500+SD (or older model with built-in keyboard)
-TG50+MS

Post what the required software is to this thread and I am sure someone will provide feedback. A5 is free and works pretty well. WeSync provides a nice schedule (wsCalendar) that can be synced to your server but only runs on OS4 devices. This could provide server side maintenance/updates to patient schedule. It can also be kept separate from the patients personal schedule.

If you pick anything other than TE2, T5 or LifeDrive then a SD or MS should be required for quick system recovery from complete battery drain or hard reset.

Privacy Note: HIPAA will required you to protect a person's info so I would create generic user names and/or password protect the device known by support team and users only.

Note on PPC. If scheduled alarm on wakeup is required then the PPC is probably not your answer because the first alarm requires a power on before the alarm will work (If my memory is still good). Check PPC forum to see if 3rd software has fixed this calendar/datebook problem. If it has been fixed, then PPC should be a good choice.

Note on TE2 NVFS: Find issue may be a deal breaker if patients use partial word to search the PDA for a nugget of info they recall. I recommend checking out Find Hack because it can restrict searches to user selected database.

You have some decision points based on the above:
- OS4/OS5
- Datebook/A5/wsCalendar
- SD/MS/Built-in

P.S. Good reference but after reading parts of the thesis you may want to look at the Clie Organizer as a possible solution (Compare ESI Planner to CO).

Also,stylus was problematic in this thesls so you may want to make a built-in keyboard or keyboard add-on a requirement.

Sorry for the rabbling thoughts; good luck.

[Kyle-]

Depret,

A note on your post script; the thesis Daver posted is not mine but I just printed a copy and will read it today. I already know it is going to be a fantastic reference.

Regarding the research design you detail, all I can say is that you and I think alike. I would love a controlled exploratory study and I will consult my coworkers about it – I’m sure the grad students wouldn’t mind getting a new pda.

Earlier, I borrowed a colleague’s PocketPC to demo. I really like the Today page and think it would be useful for our clients. There’s no remembering to remember to check your calendar. We can achieve the same thing with add-on software with a Palm. I’d rather not go that route but I’m going to download some date book demos and play around with them this afternoon.

If we do go with a Palm, it looks like the TE and TE2 will suit our needs the best. I really like that the TE2’s memory is NVFS because I expect that the majority of our study population will not have a PC and therefore will not sync/backup often. On the other hand, the TE is cheap and getting cheaper.

I think it is important to have good support and a warranty from the manufacturer. This pretty much rules out older machines. My only experience with Palm support comes through my sister. Her Zire 71 died and they sent her a new one without a hassle. She had some problems with the replacement, called Palm, and they walked her through a fix on the phone. Somehow the reset button was jammed in so it wouldn’t do a thing. I have no experience with PPC support. Can anyone here compare PPC (specifically Dell) to Palm support?

The PPC alarm bug could be a deal breaker if it has not been resolved. It appears that the bug does not affect third party alarms, but again, we would rather not have to install third party software. I’m going to poke around some PPC forums to find out which machines the problem affects.

In summary, it looks like it has come down to the TE/TE2 or some model of PPC. The Dell X30 is $199 and has descent reviews at CNet.com, plus it sounds like they give substantial academic and medical price breaks. I just noticed the X30 also records audio – that may be very useful for our clients.

Again, thanks for everything. We’ll have a winner soon.

Kyle-

[Kyle-]

Hi all,

I wanted to let you know that we are going to go with the Dell X30. I came into this project fully thinking the PalmOS would be an easy winner (I am biased of course). I was very wrong. For the tasks important to our project, the PPC is much more intuitive and easy to use. Remember, we are going to be using the handhelds as calendar/planning devices 99% of the time. With the PPC, you turn the thing on and there’s the “Today” screen. There’s no need to click anything and this functionality is ready to go out of the box. Also, if you want to make a new appointment or contact you can do so right from the Today screen. Again, it's simple right out of the box.

I sat a couple of people in my department down with my TH55 and a coworker’s PPC and was simply amazed by how quickly they took to the PPC. They liked the look and feel of it right away because of its similarity to Windoze. Watching them try both machines, I got the feeling that they were intimidated by the PalmOS simply because it was different. This is a bit unfortunate, but for what we’re doing it is important.

I asked the woman whose PPC we were using how often she had to reset it. She has owned it for two years and said, “Reset? Never. I’m not even sure I know what that is.” Wow.

Lastly, I called Dell and can get 30 handhelds for $197.21 each delivered, tax included. The E2s would be more expensive even with a substantial discount.

Thanks very much for the input everyone. Based on stability and ease of use out of the box, I am confident that this is the right choice for our population. I know my opinion of Windows Mobile and PocketPCs has changed. Unless Cobalt rocks, dare I say that I think I’ll be going to the dark side on the sad day when my TH55 dies.

Sincerely,

Kyle-

[daver]

Best of luck! I sure hope your project goes well, and the PPCs work out fine. :)