Medical Schools are actively engaged in implementing PDA's to enhance learning, patient care, and scholarship in a mobile educational environment. Commercial solutions are available to propel students into using PDA's; however, some institutions have the technical and programmatic infrastructure to create unique applications for the PDA.

At UCLA, where a PDA is now required of all third and fourth year students, we have developed several PDA tools, primarily targeted for third year medical students. We intend to showcase these tools and discuss the process of development, with an emphasis on interface and instructional design. The categories of tools we have developed are

• PDA log for patient tracking
• a dynamic News and Information page
• a PDA curriculum web site for all clerkships, including objectives and requirements; site information and notes.

These applications are available via the recently purchased School of Medicine AvantGo server.

The PDA log is modeled after the UCLA Clinical Web Log, which allowed students to enter selected patient demographics, problems, procedures. This was accomplished after several design iterations. Students are able to view their own patient data and cumulative data in a variety of formats on the Web, and learn from the epidemiological trends. Faculty view the same data with the intent of monitoring student clinical experiences in a dispersed geographical learning environment. The dynamic News page provides instantaneous prompts related to important announcements, reminders, deadlines, and other events impacting a medical student's academic life. This is automatically updated upon synching with the School of Medicine AvantGo server. The curriculum pages have been redesigned to accommodate the PDA interface.

Overall, framed as questions, the following factors emerged as the most critical in developing PDA tools:

• What effect does the screen size have on information formatting?
• What kinds of student input options should be considered? Is written feedback an option?
• What are the cognitive implications of mobile computing? Can these be integrated in the design of PDA tools?
• What kind of cognitive space does a PDA occupy in a diverse learning environment, given its interaction with the Web, and other computing resources?
• How do memory limitations affect the design of applications?
• What are the best ways of integrating the PDA in the curriculum?
• What kinds of accommodations are required for future growth of PDA's, such as remote access to Internet, large memory, color availability?

Participants will benefit from learning about the processes involved in creating unique software for the PDA. They will be able to see for themselves the products of a year of work on the development of these tools. Other benefits include face to face interaction with the presenters to have their questions answered, to verify technical details, to try out the software on the PDA.

Robert Trelease, PhD
60-051 Center for Health Sciences
School of Medicine, UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Phone: 310-206-9971
Email: trelease@ucla.edu
Website: http://compubio.medsch.ucla.edu/

CO-AUTHORS:
Anju Relan, PhD
60-051 Center for Health Sciences
School of Medicine, UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Phone: 310-206-0572
Fax: 310-267-0320
Email: arelan@ucla.edu