Are docs slaves to their mobile devices?: Digital tools are commandeering doctors’ personal lives, writes Chicago cardiac electro-physiologist Dr. Westby Fisher, who blogs at Dr. Wes, and docs are partly to blame.
Fisher writes that as society moves into an era of healthcare delivery in which millions more need physicians’ and other healthcare providers’ time, we’re seeing “a powerful force emerge — a subtle marketing of limitless physician availability facilitated by the advance of the electronic medical record, social media and smart phones.”
Dr. Westby Fisher
“This is not a new trend. We saw a similar situation years ago with the advent of the digital beeper. Even the most basic of private bodily functions could be interrupted at a moment’s notice. The expectation that phone calls should be returned instantly grew from this — personal context be damned. Doctors were accepting of these intrusions, however. The feeling of being omni-present, omni-available, and omni-beneficent fit nicely with the Marcus Welby, MD psyche of the time, and there were financial advantages to being available as the most responsive gained a competitive edge,” he writes. “But medical care based on electronic communications is commandeering doctors’ personal lives. Our instantaneous availability is breathlessly touted by healthcare systems eager to serve their patient customers. Batches of test results are reported electronically but still require human review — one at a time. With hundreds of thousands of patients registering online for their new level of doctor-patient communication, the requirement to respond quickly to patient requests taxes even the most diligent physician providers. To preserve their personal life and get home at a reasonable hour each day, test reviews and patient communications are increasingly performed from home — all for free. Worse, our similarly web-enabled patient population has learned that many of their healthcare issues can now be addressed online free of charge — just send a two-page e-mail — who needs an office visit?”
“Establishing appropriate boundaries for electronic physician access will be our next great challenge, otherwise the last drop of the milk of human kindness might just be wrung from us.” 
Stanford Medical School tries out the iPad: Students commencing medical school and a master’s of medicine program at Stanford this year will all get an Apple (NSDQ:AAPL) iPad. The school is trying out a program to see whether the devices are practical to integrate into the academic curriculum. Before you dismiss this as medical education being sacrificed in the name of Apple fanboy hype, consider this — when some of MedGadget‘s editors were in medical school, the mandatory semesterly fee for handouts and photocopies was about the cost of a low-end iPad. And that was years ago — imagine the charges now. 
Radiology reference tool for Apple mobile devices: Radiology Assistant, the medical imaging reference website created by Radiological Society of the Netherlands, released an iPhone/iPod/iPad app that brings the website’s content to mobile devices. It provides excellent information on a large variety of common radiological issues in a problem oriented way, making it a great resource for radiology residents. The app optimizes content for small-screen viewing and makes it all available offline. For now, the app is not optimized for viewing on the iPad, but the makers promise an update is on the way.
Mobile app for infant medical emergencies: After seeing her infant child choking, nurse Tara Summers decided to create an iPhone app for emergency medicine. Because Summers is a nurse, she sprang into action with Heimlich maneuver to save her baby, but worried about parents or babysitters without the same training. Along with her emergency medicine physician husband, Summers had already created MedBasics — a readily accessible information packet for the home about things to do in an emergency. The pair just announced an iPhone app called BabyMedBasics for dealing with emergencies when you’re not at home.
A weekly roundup of new developments in wireless medical technology and mHealth, by MedGadget.com.
