Twice As Many Doctors Use Tablets to Access Medical Apps, EMR

The widespread adoption of EMR software has led to significant changes and technological advancements within the healthcare industry, as medical professionals work to implement processes that improve patient care and reduce facility expenses. To help doctors achieve those goals, software companies, device manufacturers and medical app developers have been hard at work creating products that make providers’ lives easier and help them to provide better quality of care.

According to Manhattan Research’s annual Taking the Pulse study, 62 percent of physicians use tablets for professional purposes – that’s nearly twice as many as in 2011. Meanwhile, providers’ tablet of choice continues to be the iPad, possibly due to the growing number of iPad medical apps on the market. In addition, physicians using multiple devices – tablet, smartphone and computer – tend to spend more time online during the workday than those using just one or two.

What are doctors accessing on their tablets?

Only half of tablet owners (that’s still a lot) have actually used their device at the point of care, says the study. Most physicians tend to use their tablets to read medical news, research symptoms, access drug information, and send e-prescriptions. The number of doctors using their handheld devices to access EMR software is relatively low, either because few EMR systems are designed to be accessible from tablets or because doctors find it difficult to enter data from the devices’ small screens. Industry experts, however, are confident that this trend will change over time.