“Mobile devices have quickly become a preferred vehicle for physicians to access clinical information due to their ease of use and inherent portability,” according to Dr. D’Amico, the director of clinical oncology at Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center in Durham, N.C.

Oncology and cancer related specialists continue to grow their usage of mobile technology, with 20% of oncologists regularly using mobile-devices.  Oncology is one of the few fields in medicine where things commonly change at a very rapid pace, with protocols, drug regimens and new research impacting day to day the way patients are cared for.  Consequently, keeping in touch is a much higher priority for oncologists than for your average family practitioner with respect to researching new developments.

Wafik S. El-Deiry, MD, PhD, chief of hematology/oncology at Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute in Hershey, said he uses Twitter to tell colleagues about advances in genetics and therapies related to cancer.

Given that the field of oncology is constantly evolving with new targeted therapies and treatment options, it will remain an area where smartphones will truly benefit clinicians who are caring for patients.

While the past few years saw strong growth in the share of physician use of digital media in the workplace, the next few years will witness the evolution of a more mature and proficient physician audience.  The Internet will soon become physicians’ primary professional resource.  Mobile will become even more indispensable to physicians as they begin to expand the range of activities they perform on these devices to include administrative tasks, patient monitoring, drug protocols, and even disease staging.

“By 2012, all physicians will walk around with a stethoscope and a smart mobile device, and there will be very few professional activities that physicians won’t be doing on their handhelds.  Physicians will be going online first for the majority of their professional needs and will be regularly pulling online resources into patient consultations,” said Monique Levy, Senior Director of Research at Manhattan Research.  “Understanding the shifts that are occurring is essential for manufacturers, especially as many are reevaluating their sales model overall at this time.”

The many uses of the iPad in the medical profession are seemingly unlimited, from checking email and researching medications and conditions, to soliciting information from patients, accessing medical records, and educating patients.

Here are the highlighted observations from the “Cool Technology Blog”, an in the trenches experience with iPad by one of hospitalists and informaticians, Dr. Henry Feldman:

• Portability for rounding
• Epic battery life
• Lightweight
• Instant workstation when none are available
• Fast
• Able to go up and down stairs (unlike “computers on wheels”)
• Easy access to wireless network
• Access to OMR, Poe, eticket
• Showing patients their results/trends

The iPad’s not without its flaws. It’s fragile, but aftermarket products like a rubberized skin and a hand strap could be developed that would protect it.  The smaller keyboard may frustrate users, but voice recognition software would let doctors dictate notes.   Another issue is that privacy regulations and rules for prescribing controlled substances require added security. Some have suggested that a biometric device such as a fingerprint scanner could be added to later versions. Ease of printing is also expected to become a more readily available feature of future iPads.

These are all relatively small steps, though, given what Apple’s already managed to deliver: a user-friendly, lightweight, portable device that’s nearly certain to revolutionize the exchange of information in medicine.