A recent study by Jackson & Coker has shown that approximately 80 percent of all practicing physicians use a mobile device such as a tablet or smartphone, as well as any number of apps, as a part of their typical medical.
There are many different contributing factors to the rapid increase in mobile device popularity. Among them are that they are simple to use, convenient, affordable, and doctors can easily carry them from one patient exam to the next in order to carry electronic patient information, which is handy as paper charts are increasingly being digitized.
The Jackson & Coker report was entitled “Apps, Doctors, and Digital Devices.” It gleaned its data from several other studies that had examined the use of mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads by Apple, as well as a number of different mobile apps by doctors with different specialties.
According to the vice president of marketing at Jackson & Coker, Edward McEachern, doctors among all different specialties, especially those who have only recently graduated, are adopting modern technologies much more widely so that they can provide their care more cost effectively, efficiently, and “creatively” by way of easily accessible digital tools.
He explained that what this appears to suggest about upcoming trends in the medical industry is that the manufacturers of mobile devices, as well as app developers, “are well aware of the growing market in the healthcare field for their products and services.”
Among the various specialties, the proportion of doctors using mobile devices are:
• Clinical pathologists – 16 percent
• Oncologists – 20 percent
• Endocrinologists – 21 percent
• Rheumatologists – 22 percent
• Radiologists – 24 percent
• Psychiatrists – 28 percent
• Gastroenterologists – 30 percent
• Dermatologists – 30 percent
• Nephrologists – 31 percent
• Urologists – 31 percent
• Cardiologists – 33 percent
• Physicians in ERs – 40 percent
