At iMedicalApps, we’re always wary of physician surveys that claim to predict mobile use. We even did a feature article highlighting how sampling bias could be inflating the numbers of many of these surveys.
With that said, Bulletin Healthcare just released a survey based on a large sample size of physicians, using the following methods:
The analysis, based on the reading habits of more than 550,000 healthcare providers, including more than 400,000 physicians who subscribe to Bulletin Healthcare’s daily email briefings, focused on mobile device usage between June 1, 2010 and February 28, 2011.
While the report went on to talk about the increased usage of mobile devices by physicians, with Apple continuing to dominate the market — the iPhone and iPad had a more than 90% share of physician use — we were more interested by the intriguing comparison of physician mobile use by speciality.
Their survey found that Emergency Medicine physicians and cardiologists were the highest users of mobile devices and content, while Pathologists and Oncologists were the lowest. Of note, the survey looked at specialists, not primary care. Emergency Medicine physicians had more than double the usage of mobile technology than Pathologists, 40% verse 16%.
Anecdotally, I’ll be going into my Emergency Medicine residency starting in July, and my specialty has some of the most prolific users of mobile technology — John Halamka, featured in the iPad 2 keynote speech, is himself a practicing Emergency Medicine physician.
While it makes sense pathologists would be lower consumers of mobile, since they are usually in a lab setting and have desktop computers readily available, we were surprised by the low consumption of mobile by Oncologists. There are a plethora of mobile apps for Oncologists, many centered around patient education, and we thought oncologists would be utilizing these apps. However, the low level of consumption by oncologists could also be a sign that quality apps are lacking.
Emergency Room Physicians – 40%
Cardiologists – 33%
Urologists – 31%
Nephrologists – 31%
Dermatologists – 30%
Gastroenterologists – 30%
Psychiatrists – 28%
Optometrists – 28%
Radiologists – 24%
Rheumatologists – 22%
Endocrinologists – 21%
Oncologists – 20%
Clinical Pathologists – 16%
Source: Pharma Live & Bulletin Healthcare
I guess primary care docs don’t use mobile at all
hahahaha, sad they only looked at “specialists” — I’m sure they looked at primary care somewhere, but I couldn’t find the numbers on the initial report sent out to the media.
maybe those were primary care pathologists…
In my centre, each oncologist have access to a computer in the clinic (I know, basic stuff). All the useful algorithms (such as Adjuvant! Online) are available via the web (only).
The prescription for chemo and radiation is usually done electronically, the system in place calculates all the doses based on the provided information.
-Easy access to a computer (no hunting for a free computer in the clinic vs the ward or ER)
-Desktop has the required “apps”
-Tools not available as mobile apps
= no need for apps = less usage
My opinion. Anyone can come up with a better reason?
Sorry for the late response, but I just saw the posts.
RE: your point about lower levels of use among oncologists, remember that this study looked at mobile platform use for consumption of professionally focused news. It has nothing to do with mobile use in clinical settings, which is the focus of your comment.
It’s an interesting question, and one that we thought about addressing in follow-up research, if we can generate sufficient interest in such a study. Because news is our primary focus, though, we limited the scope of this work to only news-related content.
Hope this helps to clarify.