Best Phone for a Nurse

[HaterSlayer]

Hello people, a friend of mine is a new nurse and she's looking for a phone upgrade. She currently has a Sanyo that is at least 6 years old. She was checking out palms, but all the people at the Sprint stores said they liked Blackberries. Would a Black Berry be able to do everything a Palm can do? She'd need to use some nursing program that's named Hippocrates or something like that(its some Greek name) Do you know if it would be compatible with that? Also is there anything better than those two options? I just want to help steer her in the right direction.

[jmjoh122]

I know that there are a lot of programs for doctors that are good on the palm. I haven't heard of any for the blackberry, but i'm probally wrong

[ink718]

The best phone for a nurse would be the Mogul/Touch. I am going to school for a nurse and I have come across a few nice programs for nursing and other medical backgrounds. Tell her to get a Mogul or a Touch and she won't regret it. They have lots of nursing and medical programs for those phones. Check out: www.handango.com and see all the applications they have or even Google it.

[VDubb]

I agree with going with a Windows Mobile phone.

- VDubb

[HaterSlayer]

So any windows phone would be good like the Blackjack and such? She said she also wants something she can take out of the country.

[VDubb]

That would be the Ace then.

- VDubb

[Freak4Dell]

Sounds like the Ace is what you're looking for, unless the software she needs only runs on Windows Mobile Professional, in which case you'd have to give up the international capabilities.

[ink718]

So any windows phone would be good like the Blackjack and such? She said she also wants something she can take out of the country.

But keep in mind that like the Mogul/Touch that are have touch screens have more applications. You can get the MSL for the Mogul/Touch and use it in other countries as well. As long the country has CDMA technology and uses the frequency that the phone could be run on.

[VDubb]

^^^ Which pales in comparison to GSM, especially if she travels to Europe.

- Vdubb

[rjones1981]

In order to be compatible with all of the Epocrates products, she will need to have a Palm OS or Windows Mobile touchscreen device. There are some limited free Epocrates products available for the Blackberry platform and the non-touchscreen windows mobile devices. You can check the system requirements for each product at http://www.epocrates.com. I prefer Windows Mobile, but the Palm OS may be much easier to use for someone that is new to PDA devices. Having a QWERTY keyboard would also be advisable. My opinion is from my interactions with the nurses working part-time in the ER while finishing up the academic requirements to apply to medical school. I have also personally tried various devices for using the 5-Minute Clinical Consult medical software and settled on the Treo 700wx (an older device at this point in time) until the Treo 800 comes out later this year. Most of the nurses in the ER have a Treo or a full-fledged PDA. For the few that have the non-phone PDA's, they use the standard keyboard on the device and type with the stylus. They are a bit slower typing with the on-screen keyboard, but they do find the information they need.

The Samsung IP-830w is also an older device which would fit all of her needs, including international GSM roaming, but it may not be possible to buy it directly from Sprint. If she wanted to go with the IP-830w, it wouldn't hurt to ask Sprint if there are still any in stock, but most likely she would have to purchase one on eBay, which can be risky.

[Bill666]

I vote for the blackberry so you can alwys jot down your runs and check email when you aren't at home.

[VDubb]

^^^ Umm, she can do that with Windows Mobile and, heck, even view her emails in HTML while she's at it.

- VDubb