Sixty-nine percent of providers use a mobile device to view patient information and 36 percent use mobile technologies to collect data at the bedside, according to HIMSS survey of 170 individuals who held a wide variety of positions in healthcare organizations.

In order to participate in the survey, respondents were either responsible for developing the organization’s policy on mobile technology, a member of a committee that is responsible for developing the organization’s policy on mobile technology, or responsible for ensuring that the organization's mobile technology was implemented and operational.

Clinicians use mobile devices most to view patient information (69.4 percent). After that, clinicians most use mobile devices to look up non patient health information (64.7 percent), educate and train others on the device (48.8 percent), and get clinical information (41.8 percent).

The least used features of mobile devices include management of chronic care diseases at 22.94 percent, analysis of patient data at 21.18 percent, and facilitation of remote patient monitoring at 20 percent.

Additionally, when respondents were asked to identify the extent to which organizations leveraged technology to impact patient care, they were most likely to indicate that mobile technology was leveraged for pharmacy management, which includes tasks such as medication reminders and medication reconciliation.

Sixty-nine percent of clinicians said their organizations supplied them with smartphones, 67 percent were supplied with pagers, 56 percent were supplied with cellular phones, and 43 percent were supplied with tablets designed for healthcare. When clinicians were asked to identify the areas in which they would either add to or expand the use of mobile devices at their organizations, a majority, 63 percent, wanted tablets designed for healthcare. Another 30 percent wanted smartphones, 14 percent identified cellular phones and 8 percent pointed to pagers.

According to the respondents, 77 percent of the apps they used were developed by third parties, 52 percent indicated that clinicians used apps developed by the organization’s HIT vendor and 32 percent of clinicians indicated they used apps that were developed internally.

Thirty five percent of people said their organization supplies at least one app for patient or consumer use.