Epocrates, one of the top selling medical smartphone applications, recently published results from a survey of its physician users that found about 20 percent of them, or one in five plan to buy an Apple iPad when the device hits store shelves. Epocrates also announced it will create a special version of its app for the iPad.
The survey found that 9 percent of survey respondents plan to buy the iPad when it was immediately available; another 13 percent plan to buy it within the year; 38 percent of respondents are interested in the iPad but want more information about it before they commit to a decision.
Epocrates noted in a press release that of its more than 900,000 clinician users some 275,000 clinicians use Epocrates (Correction: This includes online users, too) or on their smartphones, including iPhone, BlackBerry and Palm devices. Read more from the release here.
SoftwareAdvice Survey: Which features are "must haves"?
In a separate effort, SoftwareAdvice surveyed 178 care providers, health IT professionals, and medical students to gauge their interest in the iPad and tablets in general. Here are the features this group listed as "must haves" for any tablet (not the iPad is lacking many of these):
