Series:
Version 3.06
Yet more improvements when will this man ever stop? Now 5mx compatible and SIS installation plus other minor improvements.
Version 3.04
Improvements to speed and general functionality. There is also easier output to Access databases.
Version 3.03
It is with great pleasure that I have come to review Wardfive yet again. Once again I am amazed at how prolific Shane is with his updates and his incremental improvements from his original program. Now in case you have neither heard of Wardfive nor downloaded it onto your Psion I will explain what Wardfive is and does. Wardfive is the only real Patient Information Manager (PaIM) available for the Psion. There are others but they are either still in production (see Medicaid) or rather paltry (my own Medmate). PaIMs attempt to allow the standard hospital doctor to manage the information surrounding their inpatients and as a secondary function allow the user to recall previous patients (either for training, audit or for that GP phone call). Installation can be done either manually or using a small program supplied. Once installed and opened you are presented with various views
 | Patient orientated ward view where individual patients with their SOAP criteria can be viewed |
| Active list where certain criteria can be viewed i.e. all those jobs to-do! |
| Event view where inpatient events i.e. blood results, X-ray reports any other 'events' that may befall your patient. Shane has cleverly allowed you to customise these events and you can even share your event templates with your colleagues. |
| Wards view an overall view of all the wards in your hospital and archive wards |
Wardfive also from an early stage integrated GP letter and handover lists which makes Wardfive a genuinely useful tool to have. Output can either be to a text file for importing into Word or as html.
So how does it work in practice? Well I have used Wardfive on the wards for over a year now and it works very well indeed. As a registrar I found that I did not use the events that much nor formulating a GP letter. However I found that whilst 'on take' it came into its own. I was able to keep track of the patients their problems and any outstanding investigations. The following morning I was able using the 'tagging' facility to provide an admissions list for the post-take round. Using this I also have a record for training purposes of the number and types of patients I have admitted, a sort of logbook.
Wardfive is now a very complete program. I do now find it not quite as fast as previously as this is due to the limitations of OPL. The fact that output is not direct to Word will frustrate some. There have been improvements to patient archiving but it is still not as intuitive as it could be (perhaps a giant discharge ward?).
Wardfive is now very versatile and Shane now proposes it uses in areas other than medicine. I think each doctor will find their own use for it. I strongly recommend any doctor who has a Series 5 to try it out as I am sure they will find it is worth its weight in gold.
