%0 Journal Article %T Evidence-based medicine among internal medicine residents in a community hospital program using smart phones %A Sergio A Le¨Žn %A Paul Fontelo %A Linda Green %A Michael Ackerman %A Fang Liu %J BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making %D 2007 %I BioMed Central %R 10.1186/1472-6947-7-5 %X We equipped the medical teams in the hospital wards with smart phones (mobile phone/PDA hybrid devices) to provide immediate access to evidence-based resources developed at the National Library of Medicine as well as to other medical Websites. The emphasis of this project was to measure the convenience and feasibility of real-time access to current medical literature using smart phones.The smart phones provided real-time mobile access to medical literature during daily rounds and clinical activities in the hospital. Physicians found these devices easy to use. A post-study survey showed that the information retrieved was perceived to be useful for patient care and academic activities.In community hospitals and ambulatory clinics without wireless networks where the majority of physicians work, real-time access to current medical literature may be achieved through smart phones. Immediate availability of reliable and updated information obtained from authoritative sources on the Web makes evidence-based practice in a community hospital a reality.Meeting the information needs of busy physicians at the point of care is an important challenge in medicine. Finding the best evidence to answer clinical questions is one of the basic steps in evidence-based medicine (EBM) practice [1]. To be most effective, the practice of EBM must occur in real-time at the point of patient care because physicians almost never seek answers to clinical questions after the clinical session ends [2,3]. Furthermore, medical residents answering patient-specific questions reported improvement in knowledge and changes in patient care decisions [4].The Internet has had a major impact on physicians' practice by improving their access to medical information resources. Clinicians frequently use online evidence primarily to support clinical decisions related to direct patient care [5]. Physicians' use of the Internet and PDAs is growing [6-8], with 60% to 70% of medical students and residents using PDAs fo %U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6947/7/5