Table 2.

Descriptive characteristics of included systematic reviews.

Authors	Title	Population studied	Search time frame	Number of studies	Results
Lindquist et al, 2009	The use of the PDA among personnel and students in health care: a review	Health care professionals and students	1999-2008	48 (6 RCTs)	PDAs are used in patient care by both professionals and students with varied frequency. Their use may improve decision making, reduce number of medical errors and enhance learning.
Prgomet et al, 2009	The impact of mobile handheld technology on hospital physicians’ work practices and patient care: a systematic review	Physicians	2000-2006	13 (2 RCTs)	Handheld devices demonstrate greatest benefits in contexts where time is a critical factor; when connecting spatially distributed workers; for overcoming inadequate numbers of computers; and when data access/entry is required at point of care.
Fox et al, 2007	Use of PDAs for documentation of pharmacists’ interventions: a literature review	Pharmacists	2001-2006	12	The use of PDAs may increase the frequency and number of interventions documented by pharmacists.
Kho et al, 2006	Use of handheld computers in medical education	Medical staff and students	1995-2004	67	Handheld computers are an important and evolving part of the medical trainee’s resources in medical education and patient care.
Lu et al, 2005	A review and framework of handheld computer adoption in health care	Health care professionals	1998-2004	31	Most care providers found PDAs to be functional and useful for documentation and for access to medical references and patient data.