Complementary and Alternative Medical Reference Software for Personal Digital Assistants: Evidence of Clinical Applicability

Abstract

To assess the quality and clinical applicability of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) software databases for personal digital assistants (PDAs), a standard challenge of 52 CAM clinical questions was developed. Benchmark answers were identified from standard texts. Aphysician evaluator then used each of 11 PDACAMsoftware programs to answer the challenge questions and assessed the programs for comprehensiveness, accuracy, and ease of use. Breadth of coverage of the challenge questions ranged from 23% to 87% and clinical reliability from 58% to 97%. The two most clearly useful products were the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database and the Natural Standard. None of the programs covered combination substances, and only the Natural Standard provided some information on therapeutic modalities other than the herbal and supplement aspects of CAM. The use of a standard clinical challenge as an evaluation tool may be a good way to assess reference software in this clinical area.

Keywords

handheld computers complementary and alternative medicine databases evaluation studies information storage and retrieval herbal medicine

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