Palm's Front Line Applications

Palm handhelds hold a rightful place in the array of handheld products in the market for handhelds worldwide. This company puts out a well respected selection of handheld products and is one of the few that employs it's own operating system (OS) for the computational aspect of it's product line. The primary breakdown of Palm's product line is currently comprised of smartphones, personal organizers and a product the company has named Foleo, a mobile companion. The latter is not a laptop, says the product literature but it looks remarkably like one and fulfills several of a laptop's functions. Since this product is not a handheld, it will not be discussed further in this article.

Palm Smartphones

Palm's Smartphone line is marketed under the banner Treo. Of the five different models palm has in distribution, two are Microsoft OS driven. The remaining three products employ Palm's own OS. The products in this family provide web access, significant downloading capability of Palm's many applications, eMail, instant messaging, Word, Excel and Powerpoint and various camera types depending on the model and price range chosen

Palm Handhelds

Palm offers three main handhelds. These units are primarily personal information management systems and track appointments, a contact database, task list. The personal organization software, including Calendar, Contacts, Memos and Tasks are all built in. In the case of the T/X features include a 320 x 480 transflective TFT touchscreen display, 128 mb ram, and uses Bluetooth wireless technology to link to a desk top in the home base.

One application of several Palm products is used by St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in Houston. The hospital deploys McKesson’s Horizon MobileCare Rounding software to 122 physicians, some of whom using Palm's Treo smartphones or a variety of Palm handhelds. The Horizon application marries the hospital’s clinical information system and delivers patient data to doctors wherever they are in the facility.

St. Luke’s physicians synchronize the smartphones and handhelds using their cellular carrier, Wi-Fi wireless and other techniques. The doctors can access x-ray and lab results through the system. Miscommunication in relaying results is avoided since the physicians themselves are reading the data.

St. Luke’s has been able to reduce rounds time by 50%. Patients get all the quality time they need. Patients feel more comfortable knowing that they are at a state-of-the-art hospital and they are receiving world-class care.

Palm, Palm OS, Treo and Foleo are among the trademarks or registered trademarks owned or licensed to Palm, Inc. All other brand and product names are or may be trademarks of, and are used to identify products or services of, their respective owners.