iPhone: Just What the Doctor Ordered?
12:18 am, March 24th, 2009, Nicole Martinelli
There have been a number of stories recently about doctors armed with iPhones, using the device to save time and start making the almost extinct house call come back.
Business Week got on the case with a long feature about “Dr. iPhone,” calling it a “critical tool for saving time and improving the quality of the care” provided by the doc profiled, Dan Diamond, a family practitioner who works at the Doctors Clinic in Silverdale, Washington.
“If I leave my iPhone at home, I will turn around and go back for it,” he says. “It’s that important.”
Of 22 applications Diamond has installed on his iPhone, 10 are health related. The most important, he says, is Epocrates Essentials, which lets him quickly check for drug interactions, look up disease symptoms and find out what lab tests he might need to order. “I don’t have everything I need to know memorized,” Diamond says. “This makes me look like I do.”
Interesting that traditional media is looking into how smart phones change the medical profession — just like they are changing police work and other sectors – but how many docs use them?
Photo credit: Lezlie Sterling lsterling@sacbee.com
Posted by Nicole Martinelli in iPhone, iPhone 3G | Comment on this article
My consultant whipped out an iPhone last week when he heard I had started smoking again, and using an iPhone app (don’t know which one though), calculated my risk factor for coronary heart disease, based on various parameters – my blood pressure, weight, cholesterol etc. [Luckily for me it's only 3.1% in the next 10 years]. He said he was using the iPhone because the health centre’s network was down and the computers weren’t on, though I think it was more showing off! I was impressed that not only was he able to use technology to quickly find out genuinely useful information but also that a portable device such as the iPhone could be used in this way, wherever the doctor may be.
It seems that tools such as this will be useful in the future as doctors have access to important diagnostic / risk calculation / emergency procedural information no matter if in the hospital, surgery, patient’s home or even outside. Good stuff!
Ross, on March 24th, 2009 at 2:52 am
My spouse is an MD and has been using a Palm PDA to access Epocrates Essentials for years. Sorry, the idea of using a hand-held device to access medical information on-the-fly is not an Apple invention.
tom swift, on March 24th, 2009 at 10:26 am
[...] it! WTF is Public Identity? 16 hours ago – adspace-pioneers.blogspot.com – Comment – Like – More iPhone: Just What the Doctor Ordered? 16 hours ago – cultofmac.com – Comment – Like – More Heroes: Cold Snap 16 hours ago – [...]
Ben Barren - Confessions of a Mad Man » Basel 2009 Watch Drool plus AFL09_MCC_LongRoom ere I/U come., on March 24th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Why is the text all in bold?
No Name, on March 25th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
tom-its hardly ever an entirely new thing with apple. they just do it better than anyone else ever has. so thats whats new. it works, it works well, and it improves on good ideas.
alex, on March 26th, 2009 at 9:42 pm