Survey Results: Which Smartphone Will Own the Healthcare Market?

Last week, Software Advice set out to try to answer the question: Which smartphone will own the healthcare market?

Doctors, nurses, students and many others in the healthcare industry responded to our survey and provided results that are bound to be conversation starters.

Which smartphone won out? Read through our results to see.

Smartphone Use by Profession

Right off the bat, the preference for the iPhone is clear across a number of professions. The most patient-centric healthcare roles – physicians and nurses – clearly prefer an iPhone over other smartphones.

The most tech savvy of our respondents – healthcare IT professionals – liked to mix it up with their smartphone choices but most preferred an iPhone.

Our "Other" profession category included consultants, hospital administrators and pharmacists to name a few, so it's not surprising that their smartphone choices reflected the diversity of their jobs.

One question our survey didn't address is: Is any particular healthcare profession driving the use of smartphones? For example, if physicians overwhelmingly adopt the iPhone in the next few years, does that mean that nurses, students and everyone else has to follow suit?

It's All About the Apps

Question: Why did you choose your current smartphone?

Across every role in the healthcare industry, software was the major reason for purchasing a specific phone. With the exception of our small sample size of administrative personnel, each group surveyed showed that more than a majority of respondents felt software was the most important factor when buying a smartphone.

Doesn't that make sense? The fanciest hardware in the world will quickly get old if it takes you four clicks to access your e-mail.

Time and time again in our survey comments, people said that they really enjoyed the simple user interface of the iPhone.

"The iPhone is probably the best – it has an amazing number of applications that are growing day by day. It also is fast and responsive and 'just works.'"

As the pricing and coverage area of major phone carriers becomes similar, a smartphone's software has to become it's most important feature to stand out in a crowded industry. The same is true for phones in the healthcare market.

Satisfaction High for Smartphones in General

Question: Are you satisfied with your current smartphone?

Most people, regardless of brand, were satisfied with their phones. If you're reading this article thinking about whether or not you should even purchase a smartphone, take comfort in knowing that it would be tough to completely blow your purchase.

Google phone users were especially excited about the future of Android, the phone's open source software:

"The Android platform is the only other platform that seems to have the potential to inspire the entrepreneurial fire and get developers all over the world to start building software, for medicine and countless other industries."

The only unsatisfied group of users were those not using one of the popular phones listed above.

For example, our lone Samsung Blackjack respondent said he wasn't happy with his phone and that the only reason he was using it was because it was required by his employer.

Smartphone Uses

Question: Which of the following tasks do you use your phone for in the workplace? Check all that apply.

E-mail and note taking are obvious smartphone uses that have been adopted by over 70% of our respondents.

Prescription drug reference is another popular use. This is bolstered by the popular drug reference program Epocrates, which has versions on the iPhone, Blackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile devices.

Actual hospital or clinically related tasks – lab results, e-prescribing, etc. – have been very slow to integrate with smartphones. The desire to use smartphones for tasks like that is huge, as you'll see.

Desired Smartphone Functions

Question: Which of these tasks would you like to be able to do on your phone in the future? Check all that apply.

In addition to asking what tasks the healthcare industry currently uses smartphones for, Software Advice also wanted to know what physicians and others want to use their phones for in the future.

The top two desired tasks, medical image viewing and patient records, are interesting to note because very few physicians and healthcare professionals currently use their phones for that.

Will Any Smartphone Become a Necessity?

Our survey respondents leaned heavily towards the iPhone, both in number of users and satisfaction rates. One physician said, "The iPhone seems to dominate due to sheer numbers of willing ciders."

The iPhone is the current favorite according to our results, but the results also made us skeptical about smartphone adoption in general.

Many of our respondents didn't think that any smartphone would become a necessity in the healthcare workplace.

"None of them really work unless there is integration with the software your facility is using. To my knowledge, McKesson or Cerner and the other big players are not building interoperability with smartphones into their Health Information Systems (I'd be happy to be wrong) but unless they do, the smartphone becomes a limited standalone device."

Ben, Head of Digital at Medical Educator, did a good job summing up our survey's comments, with a healthy dose of skepticism about smartphones in general:

"Although the Blackberry is probably a better business-use smart phone, it doesn't have the richness of user generated applications and add-ons that the iPhone does. The iPhone is also easy to understand, accessible, and has its marketing spot on. In terms of devices, I see the iPhone leading the way.

"However, the hardware is only part of the equation. The key driver in take up is the richness of the applications that are developed for these platforms. Only when genuine value-add tasks can be actioned via a smartphone we will see mass take-up."

Coverage and carriers will continue to be an issue as well, says Todd from Pharmacy Technology Resource:

"iPhone needs to be available via multiple networks. The AT&T monopoly is prehistoric."

For now, our survey showed that the iPhone has the most momentum. The essential smartphone, if there is one that will become a necessity in healthcare, will have to be adoptable across a wide range of professions. Is that the iPhone?

What do you think about our survey results? Which smartphone will own the healthcare market?