Smartphones

Who can resist the smartphone? If its smooth and sleek appearance doesnt entice you, its brains surely will. No matter which one you choose the Blackberry, the iPhone, the Palm smartphones are smarter than ever. Not only do these cutting edge gadgets promise to keep you connected, but with the right applications, they can organize your schedule, manage your money, track your diet, navigate your route, and provide instant reviews of restaurants, movies, recipes, vacation spots, and more. These lifestyle applications are widely popular with smartphone users, but its the growing category of medical applications that has the healthcare community buzzing.

A 2009 report from Manhattan Research found that 64% of physicians are using smartphones. The statistic shouldnt be all that surprising a single gadget offering phone, email and web access would presumably increase productivity and save time, and what busy physician wouldnt want that? Whats most interesting about the smartphone trend among physicians is the way the smartphone and its medical applications are being used in patient care.

One popular application among physicians is called Epocrates. This drug and disease reference application allows physicians to look up drug interactions and side effects; it can even inform the doctor whether or not the patients insurance will cover the drug and report how much their co-payment will be. Having this information at their fingertips can help physicians prevent errors and increase productivity.

With the number of medical applications steadily increasing, there is no doubt that these apps have the potential to change the way healthcare is delivered, but how prevalent is the trend? For every physician who wouldnt practice medicine without a smartphone, there are dozens of physicians who wouldnt dream of consulting a smartphone during a patient visit. So, is the smartphone savvy physician an anomaly, or is the average physician using medical applications too?

The MDsearch Survey Results

According to the MDsearch Smartphone Survey, 53% of physician respondents own a smartphone and 63% of those physicians are using mobile medical applications. Drug reference apps (like Epocrates) were cited most often in the MDsearch Survey, but respondents also reported using medical calculators, clinical resource apps, CME apps, medical dictionary apps, and apps for patient scheduling. A smaller number are also using mobile applications for electronic health records and e-prescribing.

The survey results suggest that physicians are finding value in medical apps, but they may not yet feel comfortable consulting their smartphones during patient visits. Only 20% of the physicians who own smartphones say they frequently consult the device during patient visits. Another 37% report that they occasionally consult their smartphones while with patients, but as more physicians adopt smartphones and new medical apps become available, these numbers are likely to increase.

Other interesting findings from the MDsearch Smartphone Survey:

*Among MDsearch physicians who own smartphones, there are twice as many iPhone users as Blackberry users.

*In addition to smartphones and cell phones, physicians are using the following gadgets:

60% of respondents use a GPS system

48% own an iPod or iPod Touch

38% use a pager

34% use a PDA

7% own a Kindle.

*The percentage of respondents who own smartphones (53%) exactly mirrors the percentage who work in facilities or practices with Electronic Health Records (53%).

Originally published here.

Robyn Melhuish is the Communications Manager at Healthcare Job Boards. The HJB portfolio of premier job boards includes niche sites for physician jobs, therapist jobs, nursing jobs, medical sales jobs, and medical mission opportunities.

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