iPhone No. 1 Smartphone Used by Physicians

The iPhone is the No. 1 smartphone platform used by physicians in the U.S., according to an annual survey by pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research. In fact, 75% of physicians polled said they owned at least one Apple Inc. device, such as an iPhone, iPad or iPod, according to the annual “Taking the Pulse U.S.” study.

Physicians' overwhelming adoption of the Apple's iPhone is surprising since Google Inc.'s Android recently surpassed Research in Motion Ltd.'s Blackberry devices as the most-used smartphone operating system in the U.S.

“Despite the success of the Android platform in the overall consumer market, physicians are flocking to the iPhone as their smartphone of choice,” said Meredith Ressi, president of Manhattan Research in New York.

A separate poll found that 61% of physicians responding said they intended to buy an iPhone by the end of 2011, up from 39% of those polled at the beginning of the year.

Part of the smartphone’s popularity can be traced to the recent surge in the number of free medical apps available for download. Medscape ranked first in the Top 20 Best Free iPhone Apps for Doctors by iMedicalApps.com. Prescription medical reference app Micromedex; the New England Journal of Medicine app; medical reference tool Epocrates; Calculate medical calculator by QxMD; and Radiology 2.0: One night in the ED rounded out the top five apps in its ranking.

Meanwhile, just one year after the iPad hit the market, 30% of U.S. physicians polled said they own the tablet, and an additional 28% said they plan to purchase one within the next six months, the survey found.

“Physicians’ response to the iPad has been overwhelmingly positive, especially for use in the practice setting,” Ressi said. “Physicians also express strong interest in being able to access electronic medical records through the iPad -- as more EMR providers offer this ability, iPad accessibility may be a deciding factor for some practices when selecting an EMR provider.”