Firm Is Hoping Doctors Find Product Handy : Technology: ComputerBooks wants its palm-size, specially programmed computers to supplant note pads and hospital charts.
If the folks at ComputerBooks get their way, tiny computers the size of one’s palm would become as familiar a tool for doctors making their rounds as the stethoscope.
While doctors have long used CAT scanners and other types of computerized medical equipment, there have been few software programs designed specifically for the doctor’s own use beyond a number of programs designed for billing, bookkeeping and other applications in a medical office.
But James Jones, a vice president at Newport Beach-based ComputerBooks, figures that young doctors just entering the field are technologically savvy enough to use computers as a replacement for the note pad and pencil and patient charts.
“We feel there is a basic need for computers at the doctor-patient level,” Jones said. “It can be a valuable tool for quick reference.”
Jones will be making trips to medical schools across the country to deliver his sales pitch in the coming months.
ComputerBooks’ software runs on Atari Corp.’s Portfolio computer, a hand-held computer that retails for $299. ComputerBooks is selling its software and the computer together for about $420, direct to doctors and to hospitals.
The Newport Beach firm’s software allows a doctor to use the computer to access a pharmaceutical database with information about 400 commonly used medications, including trade names, dosages, supply sources, and side effects. It also includes a reference guide in which the doctor can store information on particular patients.
A former dance instructor and a professor of fine arts for eight years at UC Irvine, Jones decided to switch careers and got a master’s degree in management at the Irvine school two years ago.
While attending school, Jones met Robert Woods, now a fourth-year medical student at UCI, and the two of them developed an idea to market medical software to doctors.
Last August, Jones, 37, formed ComputerBooks by teaming up with his uncle, George Colouris, 72, who for 35 years produced the annual Southern California Home and Garden Show in Anaheim.
Colouris, who has been blind since early childhood, sold his garden show in 1989 and has invested nearly $500,000 in his nephew’s enterprise.
He views the medical venture as the latest in a long line of challenges, including being the first blind student at UCLA in the late 1930s.
“I don’t let silly things like not driving a car get in my way,” Colouris said. “James is doing most of the work, but I’ll be pitching in on the public relations and advertising.”
The company has sold about 100 of the computers since last December and hopes to have sold several hundred more by June 30, the end of its fiscal year.
“We hope to sell through the larger medical schools,” Jones said. “We think the market exists. There is talk that by the year 2000, there will be no need for patient charts in hospital wards.”
The product’s prospects are limited, in part, by the newness of the technology. Hand-held computers like Sharp Corp.’s Wizard and Casio Computer’s Boss are only beginning to appear, and it isn’t clear which version will come to dominate the market.
Memory in ComputerBooks’ programs is limited to 128,000 kilobytes of data, but Jones has been able to quadruple the available memory through use of data compression techniques. For instance, the database uses the word and about 2,300 times, but the actual word is stored only once to save memory space.
Such techniques are adding to the popularity of hand-held computers, a market that is expected to grow to $2 billion by 1995, according to International Data Corp., a Framingham, Mass., market-research firm
Andy Marken, an Atari spokesman, said the company has sold 500,000 Portfolio computers since their introduction in 1989.
ComputerBooks isn’t alone in recognizing the potential for the medical market.
Pulse Metric, a San Diego company, has also been targeting doctors with a Portfolio computer that has an optional device that can be used to take a patient’s pulse. The software also allows a physician to track patients’ medical histories, said Joel Sherman, marketing director.
