PDAs in Medical Education:

MARP (Mobile Access Resource

Project)

Annis Lee Adams, MA, MLIS

Virginia M. Tanji, MLS, MEdJoshua L. Jacobs, MD

Western MLA Chapters Annual Conference

October 17, 2006

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MARP-Mobile Access Resource Project

• 3-year project funded by an NLM Grant (just entered Year 3)

• Provided PDAs with Internet access to first year medical students (MARP students)

• Provided training to MARP students on PDA use (basic & MD on Tap)

• NLM created MD on Tap transaction log website for JABSOM to save PDA searches & citations

• Enabled the development of an Intranet for students & faculty to communicate & share files

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The Setting

• Community-based medical school

• Problem-based learning curriculum

• 51 first-year med students participating

• Each received an Internet-capable PDA (Palm or Pocket PC) and activated an Internet data plan

• PDAs were not required until 3rd year, but now they are required in the 1st year

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Goals of the Grant

• To improve electronic communication and

information gathering of medical students.

– Provide Internet PDAs and training to MS

– Create a personalized Intranet for students & faculty

to communicate & collaborate on coursework

– Use AvantGo to allow MS to upload and download

data (course evaluations, patient encounters,

procedure logs, announcements) between PDAs and

Intranet

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Med Student Participation

• To get a PDA, students agreed to:

– Take pre-training and post-training surveys

– Attend PDA trainings

• To get reimbursed for monthly Internet service plans, the students had to:

– Search MD on Tap (MDoT) at least once a

week to get reimbursed for that week

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Library’s Role

• Provide training on PDA use, including MD on Tap

• Provide reference support for PDA use

• Create & administer pre-training & post-training surveys on comfort-level, skill-level, & satisfaction with PDAs generally and with med applications

• Create & administer PubMed & MD on Tap searching skills test

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Intranet

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MD on Tap

• Search Medline on a PDA

• Can display results by subject

or publication type instead of

most recent first

• Retains history of previous

searches

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MD on Tap, cont’d

Most recent first Subject clustering MeSH & Publication Type

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MD on Tap Transaction Website

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Evaluation Thus Far

• Pre-training survey - MS1s (MARP students)

and MS2s (non MARP) at start of school year

• Post-training survey – MARP students at end of

school year

• Compared MARP students Pre & Post surveys

• Compared MS2 Pre & MARP students Post

surveys

• Transaction logs track number of searches on

MDoT

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Evaluation Still to Come

• Administer a PubMed & MDoT literature searching skills test to MARP students and non MARP students

• Administer the Post-training Survey to MARP students at end of this school year

• Continue monitoring # of MDoT searches

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I think a PDA will enhance my educational experience in med school?

62%

46%

73%

2% 0%

28% 23%

35%

24%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Pre Survey

MARP

Post Survey

MARP

NonMARP

Agree

Don't Know

Disagree

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Comments from MARP Students Post Survey

• Agree – I use the web feature to look up

definitions. . .

• Agree – It’s useful as a planner and to look

things up quickly

• Agree – Lots of good resources

• Disagree – Don’t use it except for its calendar

• Disagree – Access to resources is limited

• Disagree – good for schedule. . . Internet is too

slow and cumbersome to use.

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Having a PDA has improved my ability to retrieve info for med school

39%

22%

39%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

Post Training Survey

Agree

Don't Know

Disagree

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Is the info from MD on Tap useful?

24%

28%

37%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

Post Training Survey

Agree

Don't Know

Disagree

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How often do you retrieve the full text from the MDoT transaction website?

2%

17%

43%

37%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

Post Training Survey

Often

Occasionally

Rarely

Never

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How often students searched MD on Tap over a 25 week period

7.8%

19.6%

60.7%

11.7%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Rarely

Monthly

Twice Monthly

Weekly

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PDA features used at least weekly

74%

57%61%

70%

28%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Post Training Survey

Calendar

Address Book

Email

Internet

Games

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General Comments from Post Training Survey

• Internet service is too slow

• Treo phone model is really bad. . . phone freezes

• Info from MDoT is beyond what we need in the 1st

year. . . I want basic info not clinical trials

• Links to full articles do not always connect

• Besides MDoT, more useful programs should be offered

• Thanks for paying for our PDA. . . I’d be better off with a dictionary than MDoT

• MDoT hard to do searches and oftentimes doesn’t give as relevant searches as with PubMed

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Preliminary Conclusions

• MDoT is marginally useful for 1st year med students– Textbooks and databases like UpToDate & eMedicine

generally answer their questions better than PubMed or MDoT

• Anecdotal evidence suggests that students who purchased med apps like Stedman’s were happier with their PDAs than those who didn’t.

• Some students commented that PDAs would probably be more useful during their clinical clerkships years when they don’t have ready access to a computer