Study: More Doctors Going Mobile (URL: ) By Chad Berndtson, ChannelWeb 11:42 AM EST Thu. Jan. 15, 2009 The health-care sector is often late to the popular technology party, but a new study suggests physicians might be riding the mobility wave faster than workers in other sectors, and even the general public. According to the study, conducted by health-care market-research firm Manhattan Research, about 54 percent of physicians own a PDA or other mobile device, and half of those surveyed said the device is essential to their practice. The report, "U.S. Physician Market Trends," is part of a broader Manhattan Research study called "Taking the Pulse v. 8.0." Other data points on physicians and technology include the following: * One-fifth of the physicians who own mobile devices have used them for continuing medical education. * Physicians most commonly use their mobile devices to reference drug databases or drug dosage calculators. * The most popular reference databases accessed by mobile devices are Epocrates, MerckManual and 5-Minute Clinical Consult. * Physicians who join online communities such as Sermo—founded in 2006 to connect M.D.s and D.O.s in the U.S.—are most likely to be young, female, primary care physicians who own a mobile device. * 36 percent of physicians said they communicate with their patients online. Copyright 2009 Everything Channel |