Doctors Find Tablets More Useful Than Smartphones

Date: Jun-14-2013Doctors Find Tablets More Useful Than Smartphones

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Article Date: 14 Jun 2013 - 0:00 PDT

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Doctors Find Tablets More Useful Than Smartphones


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Doctors find tablets more useful than smartphones for clinical purposes, according to new survey results measuring tablet and smartphone usage among electronic health record (EHR) and non-EHR users.

The two reports, titled "Mobile Usage in the Medical Space 2013" and "Tablet Usage by Physicians 2013", found that doctors who use EHRs and a smartphone or tablet mainly use their handheld devices for sending and reading emails.

Physicians with tablets use their device to access EHRs much more frequently than smartphones, 51 percent of the physicians surveyed who had tablets reported using them daily to check EHRs, while only 7 percent of doctors reported checking EHRs daily using their smartphones.

75 percent of doctors who have access to EHRs use a smartphone and 33 percent use a tablet. However, time spent using the tablet to access the records is significantly (66 percent) higher.

Thomas Stringham, co-founder of AmericanEHR Partners, said:

"These two reports provide useful insights into how physicians use technology to interact with patients, physician satisfaction with mobile devices and apps, and the differences of technology use within various user demographics."

More than half of the smartphones or tablets (55 and 54 percent respectively) which the doctors use to access EHRs are Apple® products.

Ipads are becoming increasingly popular among healthcare professionals.
The top five smartphone apps used for medical practice were:
Epocrates®
Medscape®
MedCalc®
Skyscape®
Doximity®
The top five tablet apps used for medical practice were:
Epocrates®
Medscape®
Up To Date®
MedCalc®
Skyscape®
Only 28 percent of smartphone users and 18 percent of tablet users said the quality of the apps available for their profession completely satisfied their needs.

Stringham added:

"As the adoption of mobile devices increases, so do the expectations of clinical users.The health IT sector and app developers have an opportunity to improve the quality and usefulness of clinical mobile apps."

The "Mobile Usage in the Medical Space 2013" report found that:

75 percent of doctors communicate with other doctors as least once a week using their smartphones.
70 percent of doctors look up information about medications on their smartphones once a week
A quarter of doctors without a smartphone reported that they intent to buy one within 6 months.

The "Tablet Usage by Physicians 2013" report found that:

A third of EHR users and a quarter of non-EHR users reported using a tablet in their medical practice
Doctors at smaller practices are more likely to use their tablet for a broader range of activities
Only a third of EHR users said they were very satisfied with their tablet
A third use their tablet to look up information about medications every day

Doctors with iPads have access to everything they need on the go

Innovative clinical mobile apps

The Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) for Cardiac Radionuclide Imaging application for smartphones is an app made to give physicians access to published criteria used to assess the need for a patient to have cardiac radionuclide imaging (RNI).
A smartphone app has allowed ovarian cancer surgeons in British Columbia in Canada to enter and upload tumor data directly from the operating theatre. Gynaecological surgeon Dr Sarah Finlayson said that "as soon as the case is finished, I can pick up my iPhone and enter all of the vital information from the procedure we just performed."
Even the world's leading independent general medical journal The Lancet  has developed an app now available on the App Store. The Lancet App is designed to help healthcare professionals (HCPs) find information they need quickly and efficiently on their iPad.
Research from the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine shows that doctors can make a stroke diagnosis using an iPhone application with the same accuracy as a diagnosis at a medical computer workstation.

Written by Joseph Nordqvist

Copyright: Medical News Today

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