Mobile Medical App Development: Combining Clinical and Technical Expertise

Physician smartphone adoption rates will experience significant growth over the next few years, with expected use expected to reach 81% in 2012, according to a physician report from pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research.  The report examines how physician use of emerging technologies such as social media and mobile will evolve and consequently highlights opportunities for manufacturers and developers.

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.”