Smartphone and medical related App use among medical students and junior doctors in the United Kingdom (UK): a regional survey

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Abstract

Background

Smartphone usage has spread to many settings including that of healthcare with numerous potential and realised benefits. The ability to download custom-built software applications (apps) has created a new wealth of clinical resources available to healthcare staff, providing evidence-based decisional tools to reduce medical errors.

Previous literature has examined how smartphones can be utilised by both medical student and doctor populations, to enhance educational and workplace activities, with the potential to improve overall patient care. However, this literature has not examined smartphone acceptance and patterns of medical app usage within the student and junior doctor populations.

Methods

An online survey of medical student and foundation level junior doctor cohorts was undertaken within one United Kingdom healthcare region. Participants were asked whether they owned a Smartphone and if they used apps on their Smartphones to support their education and practice activities. Frequency of use and type of app used was also investigated. Open response questions explored participants’ views on apps that were desired or recommended and the characteristics of apps that were useful.

Results

257 medical students and 131 junior doctors responded, equating to a response rate of 15.0% and 21.8% respectively. 79.0% (n=203/257) of medical students and 74.8% (n=98/131) of junior doctors owned a smartphone, with 56.6% (n=115/203) of students and 68.4% (n=67/98) of doctors owning an iPhone.

The majority of students and doctors owned 1–5 medical related applications, with very few owning more than 10, and iPhone owners significantly more likely to own apps (Chi sq, p<0.001). Both populations showed similar trends of app usage of several times a day. Over 24hours apps were used for between 1–30 minutes for students and 1–20 minutes for doctors, students used disease diagnosis/management and drug reference apps, with doctors favouring clinical score/calculator apps.

Conclusions

This study found a high level of smartphone ownership and usage among medical students and junior doctors. Both groups endorse the development of more apps to support their education and clinical practice.

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Most cited references 21

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The impact of mobile handheld technology on hospital physicians' work practices and patient care: a systematic review.

Mirela Prgomet, Andrew Georgiou, Johanna Westbrook (2009)

The substantial growth in mobile handheld technologies has heralded the opportunity to provide physicians with access to information, resources, and people at the right time and place. But is this technology delivering the benefits to workflow and patient care promised by increased mobility? The authors conducted a systematic review to examine evidence regarding the impact of mobile handheld technology on hospital physicians' work practices and patient care, focusing on quantification of the espoused virtues of mobile technologies. The authors identified thirteen studies that demonstrated the ability of personal digital assistants (PDAs) to positively impact on areas of rapid response, error prevention, and data management and accessibility. The use of PDAs demonstrates the greatest benefits in contexts where time is a critical factor and a rapid response crucial. However, the extent to which these devices improved outcomes and workflow efficiencies because of their mobility was largely absent from the literature. The paucity of evidence calls for much needed future research that asks explicit questions about the impact the mobility of devices has on work practices and outcomes.

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An Evaluation of the Use of Smartphones to Communicate Between Clinicians: A Mixed-Methods Study

Robert Wu, Peter Rossos, Sherman Quan … (2011)

Background Communication between clinicians is critical to providing quality patient care but is often hampered by limitations of current systems. Smartphones such as BlackBerrys may improve communication, but studies of these technologies have been limited to date. Objective Our objectives were to describe how smartphones were adopted for clinical communication within general internal medical wards and determine their impact on team effectiveness and communication. Methods This was a mixed-methods study that gathered data from the frequency of smartphone calls and email messages, clinicians' interviews, and ethnographic observations of clinical communication interactions. Triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data was undertaken to develop common themes that encompass comprehensive and representative insights across different methods. Results Findings from our study indicated that over a 24-hour period, nurses sent on average 22.3 emails to the physicians mostly through the “team smartphone,” the designated primary point of contact for a specific medical team. Physicians carrying the team smartphone received on average 21.9 emails and 6.4 telephone calls while sending out 6.9 emails and initiating 8.3 telephone calls over the 24-hour period. Our analyses identified both positive and negative outcomes associated with the use of smartphones for clinical communication. There was a perceived improvement in efficiency over the use of pagers for clinical communication for physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals. In particular, residents found that the use of smartphones helped to increase their mobility and multitasking abilities. Negative outcomes included frequent interruptions and discordance between what doctors and nurses considered urgent. Nurses perceived a worsening of the interprofessional relationships due to overreliance on messaging by text with a resulting decrease in verbal communication. Unprofessional behaviors were observed in the use of smartphones by residents. Conclusions Routine adoption of smartphones by residents appeared to improve efficiency over the use of pagers for physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals. This was balanced by negative communication issues of increased interruptions, a gap in perceived urgency, weakened interprofessional relationships, and unprofessional behavior. Further communication interventions are required that balance efficiency and interruptions while maintaining or even improving interprofessional relationships and professionalism.

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The Use of the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) Among Personnel and Students in Health Care: A Review

Anna Lindquist, Pauline E Johansson, Göran I Petersson … (2008)

Background Health care personnel need access to updated information anywhere and at any time, and a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) has the potential to meet these requirements. A PDA is a mobile tool which has been employed widely for various purposes in health care practice, and the level of its use is expected to increase. Loaded with suitable functions and software applications, a PDA might qualify as the tool that personnel and students in health care need. In Sweden today, despite its leadership role in mobile technologies, PDAs are not commonly used, and there is a lack of suitable functions and software applications. Objective The aim of the present review was to obtain an overview of existing research on the use of PDAs among personnel and students in health care. Methods The literature search included original peer-reviewed research articles written in English and published from 1996 to 2008. All study designs were considered for inclusion. We excluded reviews and studies focusing on the use of PDAs in classroom situations. From March 2006 to the last update in May 2008, we searched PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane, IngentaConnect, and a local search engine (ELIN@Kalmar). We conducted a content analysis, using Nielsen’s Model of System Acceptability as a theoretical framework in structuring and presenting the results. Results From the 900 references initially screened, 172 articles were selected and critically assessed until 48 articles remained. The majority originated in North-America (USA: n=24, Canada: n=11). The categories which emerged from our content analysis coincided to a certain extent to Nielsen’s Model of System Acceptability (social and practical acceptability), including usefulness (utility and usability) subcategories such as learnability, efficiency, errors, and satisfaction. The studies showed that health care personnel and students used PDAs in patient care with varied frequency. Most of the users were physicians. There is some evidence that the use of a PDA in health care settings might improve decision-making, reduce the numbers of medical errors, and enhance learning for both students and professionals, but the evidence is not strong, with most studies being descriptive, and only 6 randomized controlled trials. Several special software programs have been created and tested for PDAs, and a wide range of situations for their use have been reported for different patient groups. Drug and medical information were commonly accessed by PDA users, and the PDA was often viewed as the preferred tool when compared to paper-based documents. Some users regarded the PDA easy to operate, while others found it difficult in the beginning. Conclusions This overview of the use of PDAs revealed a positive attitude towards the PDA, which was regarded as a feasible and convenient tool. The possibility of immediate access to medical information has the potential to improve patient care. The PDA seems to be a valuable tool for personnel and students in health care, but there is a need for further intervention studies, randomized controlled trials, action research, and studies with various health care groups in order to identify its appropriate functions and software applications.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Med Inform Decis Mak

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Med Inform Decis Mak

Title: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making

Publisher: BioMed Central

ISSN (Electronic): 1472-6947

Publication date Collection: 2012

Publication date (Electronic): 30 October 2012

Volume: 12

Page: 121

Affiliations

[1 ]King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Denmark Hill, SE5 9RS, London

[2 ]School of Nursing, Midwifery & Physiotherapy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2HA, UK

Article

Publisher ID: 1472-6947-12-121

DOI: 10.1186/1472-6947-12-121

PMC ID: 3504572

PubMed ID: 23110712

SO-VID: c1c348c2-7e03-4404-ae9c-63efa6c0fde3

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Smartphone and medical related App use among medical students and junior doctors in the United Kingdom (UK): a regional survey

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Most cited references 21

The impact of mobile handheld technology on hospital physicians' work practices and patient care: a systematic review.

An Evaluation of the Use of Smartphones to Communicate Between Clinicians: A Mixed-Methods Study

The Use of the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) Among Personnel and Students in Health Care: A Review

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