My ReachMD commentary about smartphones

I'm on ReachMD talking about smartphones this week. As more physicians choose to use smartphones, they need to make choices about operating systems and functionality. You can listen to my commentary here and be sure to vote in the poll:
http://www.reachmd.com/xmsegment.aspx?sid=5337

According to a recent Manhattan Research report, 80% of physicians will be using smartphones by the year 2013. Are you currently using a smartphone, or are you using an older device like a Palm Pilot?

If you’ve never used a smartphone, get ready to have the power of the Internet right in your hand. You can check your e-mail anywhere you go, access automatically updated databases, and stay current with the latest medical news. By leveraging this type of digital information, you can use this powerful device right at the point of care. Plus, if you’re currently using an electronic health record, you may even have access to that EHR right from your phone.

Now if we stop to look at a few specific smartphones, we’ll see that the Apple iPhone is very popular among physicians. However, this device lack a physical keyboard and some users have complained about the difficulty of using the on-screen keyboard. So, if you’re looking for a device that has a physical keyboard, consider the Motorola Droid running Google’s Android operating system or the Palm Pre running the new Palm webOS. Microsoft is also coming out with a brand new system called Windows Phone 7 Series. BlackBerry is rumored to be releasing a device that finally includes both a touch screen plus a physical keyboard, so you can have the best of both worlds.

Be sure to vote in this week’s poll about smartphones: what feature is most important when you’re selecting a smartphone?

http://www.reachmd.com/xmsegment.aspx?sid=5337