USBMIS Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy

Price: $ 27.50

1 year term: Yes

Required Memory: 3 MB

Ease of use: Excellent

Information quality: Excellent

Design quality: Excellent

Who it's best for: Physicians, nurses and others who need information about antimicrobial prescribing and delivery in a hurry.

General Comments:
USBMIS’ Sanford Guide is easier to use than the paper version (no fine print, better sorting of information), uses journal citations so that you know if your evidence is current or not, and unlike most PDA drug software, actually uses smooth typefaces. This is not a general reference, and is most helpful when choosing antibiotics to treat bacterial and viral infections.

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Unbound's Davis Drug Guide Review

Unbound: Davis’ Drug Guide

Price: $49.95

1 year term: Yes

Required Memory: 4 MB

Ease of use: Excellent

Information quality: Mediocre

Design quality: Excellent

Who it's best for: Nurses, Paramedics, and others who need more information about practical considerations of medicine delivery.

General Comments: The well-loved Davis Drug Guide series, published annually for Nurses, has been refashioned by many PDA software makers. The version by Unbound was the only one to win the Handango "Best (Healthcare) Industry Application" in 2005. It is a well-researched product that is most helpful for those who need to access information quickly at the patient's bedside, but it is only updated quarterly and lacks a separate tool for drug interactions, as with Epocrates or Lexi-Comp.

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Lexi-Comp Review

Price: $225 for Lexi-Complete ($285 after March 1, 2006). $75 for Lexi-Drugs only, without herbs, drug interaction software, etc.

1 year term: Yes

Required Memory: 14 MB on main memory, 40 MB on card

Ease of use: mediocre (see below)

Information quality: excellent (see below)

Design quality: inferior (see below)

Who it's best for: pharmacy residents, researchers, clinicians who have copious spare time at the bedside to look up information

General Comments: Lexi-Drug, a very thorough drug reference text, and Lexi-Comp, a series of drug references that includes Lexi-Drug, infuse large volumes of text into entries about a given drug, with a "jump" feature to zip from one portion of text to the other. The text provides excellent information, but is difficult to use at the bedside due to its lack of windows and poor synthesis of the information it includes.

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