Affordable software keeps info at your fingertips. (Handheld Computers).

ATLANTA -- A myriad of medical software for handheld computers can help you organize, schedule, code, calculate, dose, and track, speakers said at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Many popular programs can be downloaded off the Internet free of charge or for a nominal fee, Dr. Donald J. Klingen Jr. said.

For example, ePocrates is "usually the first thing people load after they get their Palm." This free electronic pharmacopeia (at www.epocrates.com) lists drug dosages, indications, warnings, alerts, and other information. The cost of maintaining the software is defrayed by the sale of aggregated prescribing information to drug manufacturers and marketing firms.

The program includes comparative cost data based on average wholesale pricing. "The cost feature of ePocrates is very nice," said Dr. K. Meg Morrison, associate director of the family practice residency at Mount Carmel Health System, Columbus, Ohio. Previously, "a lot of patients asked me, and I didn't always have time to look it up."

MultiCheck software lets a physician assess potential drug interactions. "This is very handy, especially if you have a patient with polypharmacy and you want to prescribe a new drug," said Dr. Klingen, director of medical informatics at Crozer-Keystone Family Practice Residency, Springfield, Pa. The software can compare up to 30 medications at a time, he added.

Two widely used document readers, iSilo and DOC, compress documents and medical texts--even large reference works--for storage on a handheld computer. Compared with the DOC format, the iSilo format "goes one step further, allowing another 10%-20% reduction in size of the compressed file," Dr. Klingen said. For about $12, iSilo can be downloaded via the http://pdaMD.com Web site.

Handheld computers are a convenient way to store and access practice management information, such as schedules, appointments, and memos. A program that organizes memos well and costs less than $20 is Hi-Note, he said. The fpnet section of the American Academy of Family Physicians Web site (www.aafp.org/fpnet) lists more than a dozen other practice management software vendors.