Clinician Use of Healthcare-Focused Smartphone Apps: An Analysis of Trends In Access and Utilization

Background:  Since the 2007 launch of the Apple iPhone, use of multimedia-enabled smartphones has increased dramatically; more than 73,000,000 iPhones alone have been sold between 2007 and 2010.  In late 2010, sales of Android-based phones surpassed iPhone sales, further increasing this emerging market. The ways in which people utilize smartphones is also rapidly evolving: more than 50 million US citizens now utilize their smartphone to browse the Internet monthly.  Clinician use of smartphones is undergoing a similar evolution, as well, with 72% of US physicians now utilizing smartphones.  The fundamental question concerning development of effective mobile applications for healthcare professionals, however, is simply, how do clinicians utilize healthcare-based apps?

Program background: MediCom Worldwide, an ACCME-accredited provider of integrated, medical education programs, has developed several proven-effective, practical, online resources in rapidly growing therapeutic categories where practitioners have dramatic need for education and tools to improve practice.  Corona Productions specializes in the development of innovative technological solutions for interactive, multimedia healthcare activities; through its Internet, mobile web and smartphone applications, Corona technology impacts more than 1,000,000 clinicians annually. MediCom has developed several comprehensive online therapeutic resources dedicated to meeting the practical, applied needs of its clinician audiences.  These include Emerging Solutions in Pain (www.emergingsolutionsinpain.com) and Managing Myeloma (www.managingmyeloma.com), two initiatives that provide practitioners with peer-reviewed scientific and clinical evidence, validated tools, and perspectives of experts in multiple media to satisfy learning preferences.  In 2009, MediCom and Corona Productions developed a multimedia-based iPhone app for clinicians who treat chronic pain patients, with subsequent apps developed in multiple myeloma, and for the Android operating system.

Evaluation Methods and Results: Smartphone applications developed by MediCom and Corona are programmed to provide on-demand access to clinically relevant information, and to support healthcare professionals in point-of-care patient assessment and management.  Each app is designed to be relevant to the specific needs of healthcare professionals in each therapeutic area; features include streaming video and audio, real-time news feeds and point-of-care calculators.  Data pertaining to the download and access of each feature is collected, and analyses have been conducted concerning clinician utilization trends and patterns of interactive, app-based technology in these therapeutic areas.  This presentation will focus on data accumulated over the past 18 months, with specific analyses of:

• Session frequency and length
• Patterns of utilization and relative frequency of content access
• Differential utilization of content by mobile platform (iPhone versus Android)

Conclusions: Clinicians are increasingly utilizing smartphone apps to access relevant tools and resources.  Differential trends in downloads, access and utilization of these apps can be seen; while similarities exist in utilization trends across therapeutic areas, distinct differences are observed between iPhone and Android-based apps. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  Differential trends observed in clinician utilization of smartphone apps provide critical information for development of new apps that further support point-of-care utilization of this new technology.  By analyzing data associated with smartphone use across two diverse therapeutic areas and different platforms, attendees will gain a greater understanding of clinician utilization of this rapidly evolving technology.