PEPID '99 (Portable Emergency Physician Information Database)

Media Review

CJEM 2000;2(4):283

Edited by Mark Rosenbloom. PEPID, Inc., 100 Greenwood Ave., Evanston IL 60201 USA. http://www.pepid.com; 888 321-7828. Available for PC, Mac and PDAs (personal data assistants). US$295 single user, US$1,000 for a 5-computer site licence.

PEPID is an emergency medicine reference software system written by 40 US emergency physicians. Because it is programmed in HTML, it can be read on any operating system that supports a Web page browser. I used PEPID at home on my PC and during ED shifts on my Palm 3x.

The content is clinically relevant for reminders during busy shifts. It provides brief information, organized in a very practical way. Topics include procedures, toxicology and drug information. Illustrations will be included in a future edition.

The content is presented in point form, well suited for the Palm PDA. Navigating around PEPID's 2-MB database was fast and easy on the Palm by tapping on-screen hotlinks, but the indexing system needs work. "Hyponatremia" wasn't listed in the index, and a search of the entire PEPID database for "hyponatremia" using the "Find" feature was too slow. I found it by starting in the table of contents and tapping on the "Metabolic" heading. I quickly became accustomed to finding my way around.

PEPID comes on a CD-ROM for PC or Mac installation. Owners can also download the Palm verison for free over the Internet through AvantGo using a password supplied by the manufacturer. This process will be unfamiliar to most new Palm users and can be a bit tricky. Unless you use AvantGo regularly, remember to disable the Internet connection after downloading the database, or it will keep connecting at every HotSync.

PEPID is expensive, and the content could be fleshed out more, but this is the best Palm emergency medicine reference package I've found yet for the Palm PDA.

James M. Thompson, MD
Associate Professor
Division of Emergency Medicine
Dalhousie University
Charlottetown, PEI