Personal digital assistant (PDA) use amongst anaesthetists: an Australian survey

We report an email questionnaire survey of Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) use amongst members of the Australian Society of Anaesthetists (ASA). PDAs are becoming increasingly popular and they have many applications within the healthcare community. Seventy-eight per cent of members of the ASA have an email address (1870/2385) although only 38% (900/2385) of members are regular uses of email. We surveyed 1870 members of the ASA and received 215 responses (11% response rate). We found that 91% of anaesthetists answering the survey used a PDA and of these 72% use a Palm operating system, which reflects current market trends. Anaesthetists use PDAs for a wide range of facilities: appointments, drug reference, contact details and "tasks to do" being the most utilized. The most common software programs added to the operating system were pharmacopoeias, contact managers and database programs.