Doctors Driving IT Development with their Mobile Technology Choices
Posted by AMS at 31 MAY 8:04 am Share
When physicians at Albany (N.Y.) Medical Center started adopting smartphones a few years ago, they almost immediately looked for ways to use them in their clinical lives.
Doctors liked being able to access their patients’ records and clinical tools anytime, from any place, so they pressured the hospital to give them access.
With an estimated 81% of physicians using smartphones (up from 72% in 2010), according to a survey of 2,041 physicians released May 4 by Manhattan Research, Albany Medical Center was not alone in feeling pressure from physicians to allow them mobile access. Hospitals and health information technology vendors are realizing that the way to sell physicians on health information technology is to make it mobile. Instead of hospitals and vendors telling physicians to adapt to their preferred ways of using technology, physicians are gaining the power to sway hospitals and vendors to their preferred way of using it.
Tech-savvy physicians have long been fans of mobile technology, even before it became as user-friendly as it is today. Many physicians adopted the Palm Pilot when it was the new device on the market.
The BlackBerry was the first smartphone to reach widespread adoption rates in health care, with many hospitals buying them in bulk and handing them out to physicians. But the mobile devices available today have something to offer even the least tech-savvy physicians, mainly ease of use, which is why the market penetration has gone so deep.
Manhattan Research found that while there are three smartphone leaders — Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, devices using Google’s Android platform and Apple’s iPhone — physicians are showing a clear preference for Apple products for the first time. That bias toward Apple has extended to the tablet market as well because of the iPad. Manhattan’s survey found 75% of physicians owning at least one Apple product.
“Physicians just really love the ease of use of the [Apple iPad],” said Meredith Ressi, president of Manhattan Research. “It’s intuitive, and they know it’s not going to give them a bunch of technology headaches.” Thirty percent of doctors are using iPads to access electronic medical records, view radiology images and communicate with patients, according to Manhattan. An additional 28% of doctors plan to buy an iPad within the next six months.
Albany Medical Center has discovered a similar trend among its physicians.
As a direct result of physician demand, the hospital made provisions to allow them to use their own mobile devices to access the hospital’s IT system.
Administrators knew anecdotally that many physicians preferred Apple products, but a recent project helped shed some light on their use.
Eighteen physicians in the group were given an iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry to use and compare over three months. There was a clear preference for the iPad for accessing email, patient records and applications, and the iPhone was the preferred device for phone calls. Albany said despite the limited number of doctors, this survey was indicative of physician use of mobile devices.
Source: www.ama-assn.org
