While most physicians own a smartphone, few use their personal device to access or communicate through electronic health record systems, according to a new report by Spyglass Consulting, MobiHealthNews reports.

For the report, researchers interviewed 100 "tech-savvy" physicians.

Findings

The report found that doctors prefer to use consumer text messaging for clinical communication over secure messaging applications because it is simpler to do so (Comstock, MobiHealthNews, 1/14).

Eighty-three percent of respondents expressed frustration over using an EHR system for clinical communication due to:

• Inadequate messaging capabilities;
• Limited usability; and
• Poor interoperability (Spyglass release, 1/14).

However, while 96% of physicians said they use smartphones, only 10% of those who do so said they would use them to access EHRs.

Meanwhile, 70% of respondents said they "believe that hospital IT organizations ... are making inadequate investments to address physician mobile computing and communication requirements at point of care."

Recommendations

Gregg Malkary, founder and managing director of Spyglass, said hospitals need to implement system-wide changes to improve mobile tools for physicians.

For example, Malkary said doctors need to be compensated for using such tools (MobiHealthNews, 1/14).