MedRules is an award-winning application designed to bring evidence-based data to the bedside by providing the physician with useful clinical prediction rules taken from the medical literature. IMPORTANT: The recommendations made by this software are not medical advice. Patient management decisions should take into account all relevant information and the physician's best clinical judgement.
IMPORTANT: Please install the 'NSBRuntime.prc' file included in the .zip archive in order to ensure that you're using the correct version. This application was compiled under NS BASIC version 1.10, and will only work with NSBRuntime version 1.10; if you have other NS BASIC programs installed that require a different version of NSBRuntime, this application may crash or behave unpredictably.
'MathLib.prc' is a free shared library that can be used by any Palm OSŪ 2.0+ program that needs IEEE-754 double-precision math functions. It's distributed under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License, and is freely available with full source code and documentation from the MathLib information page. A copy is included in the MedRules archive for your convenience.
SO HOW MUCH DOES THIS THING COST?
MedRules is freeware for personal use. It is not public domain software and may not be sold or used for commercial purposes without the express written permission of the author.
BACKGROUND
MedRules was written using NS BASIC. Users will likely notice that MedRules executes somewhat slower than Palm OSŪ programs written using C/C++ development tools such as CodeWarrior. This is because NS BASIC programs are compiled into p-code, not native assembly language, and are executed using a runtime engine (the 'NSBRuntime.prc' file). The slowdown results from this process, not the source code itself. For that reason, speeding it up is out of my hands.
The learning curve for a non-programmer such as myself is a significant stumbling block to developing in C/C++. At this point, I'm willing to put up with NS BASIC's sluggishness in exchange for the ability to develop the application at all. Hopefully, others will feel similarly. NS BASIC is in its early stages of development, and it's quite possible that future versions will execute faster.
If you have any suggestions regarding ways to improve this application, or know of a specific clinical prediction rule that you would like to have included, please send me a description and the relevant citation from the literature, and I'll see what I can do.