After consulting with healthcare professionals, the PDA Swipe enabled handhelds were designed with two specific purposes in mind. First, PDA Swipe will be used to identify, access and update patient's medical records. Second, healthcare professionals will use the handhelds to collect and process credit card data. With a total system cost to the end user of less than $600, the PDA Swipe in combination with a Palm Powered HandEra 330 or TRGpro is a cost-effective solution for numerous applications such as healthcare, point of sale, credit card processing, driver's license / ID verification, and lead retrieval, among others.

"Semtek's PDA Swipe solution, coupled with a new feature-rich HandEra 330 or TRGpro, will certainly increase efficiency across the enterprise," commented Allen Penkake, vice president of sales for HandEra. "The potential is great for industries including healthcare, to deploy the Semtek/HandEra solution in the field, saving costs and valuable resources."

The PDA Swipe requires no batteries; power usage to the device is minimal, since the card reader remains in a "sleep" mode when not in use. The HandEra 330 and TRGpro fit into the PDA Swipe just as they do with the HotSync cradle that enables bi-directional synchronization with the users' desktop PCs. The card reader design allows the handheld computer to remain attached to the PDA Swipe while performing the synchronization to the host PC in the HotSync docking cradle. When a card is swiped through the reader, data on the card is decoded and transferred to the handheld's database.