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Purpose:
To set guidelines and standards for the distribution, support, and use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDA’s) provided to housestaff members and medical students by the Medical Director's Office.

Definition of Terms:
PDA: Personal Digital Assistant or handheld personal computer.
HIPAA: Healthcare Information Portability and Accountability Act.

Policy:
The Medical Director's office will provide PDA’s to housestaff and students in order to take advantage of electronic information systems and continue the transition to electronic records. These PDA’s are intended for both educational and personal use and will become the property of the housestaff and medical students.

Information Systems will provide and support the PDA’s with a standard institutionally approved application software image already loaded. Changes to this image are the responsibility of the user. Information Systems will support PDA’s with changed images and/or technical problems. During troubleshooting, the PDA may need to be reimaged to the standard image. Support for PDA’s will be provided via the Information Systems Help Desk (614-293-3861) as with other peripheral devices. In addition, the Information System’s SES/PDA Office (formerly located at 1080 Graves Hall) located at 410 Prior Health Sciences Library may be visited. The office is staffed between 7:30 AM - 6:00 PM (office number: 614-688-5635).

PDA initialization passwords are required to be setup if you are storing any Protected Health Information (PHI) on the device. Passwords must be set to lock the device after fifteen minutes of inactivity. PHI is any health related information that can be traced back to a patient. Examples of PHI include, but are not limited to, Patient Summaries, Patient Results, Patient Reports, and Patient Logs. Patient Health Information (PHI) should only be stored on devices running an approved software and hardware configuration. Users who violate this policy may be denied access to the Hospitals’ computing resources and are subject to other appropriate corrective action up to and including termination. Conduct that interferes with the normal and proper operation of the Hospitals data systems, or which is harmful or offensive to others will not be permitted. Other relevant Health System Policies include: Information Security, Electronic Resources and Patient Confidentiality.

Upgrades to PDA’s may be provided at the discretion of the institution as technology changes. Housestaff and medical students who purchased a PDA matching the institution standard will also be supported by the methods described above.

Unfortunately, the Medical Center and College cannot provide replacements for lost or broken PDA’s. Every effort will be made for you to take advantage of vendor replacement and pricing policies.


Information Systems Help Desk: 614 - 293-3861

Information Systems SES/PDA Office

410 Prior Health Sciences Library (previously located at 1080 Graves Hall) 7:30 AM – 6:00 PM, M-F 614-688-5635

OSUMC PDA Central: mcpdacentral.osu.edu