A UK perspective on smartphone use amongst doctors within the surgical profession

• Doctors use their own mobile devices to support their work due to limitations in time and space.
• Of those surveyed >90% owned a smartphone.
• 80% owning smartphones were willing to use their own device within the workplace in a ‘BYOD’ manner.
• >50% of smartphone users own medical apps and >85% use the Internet to access medical information.
• It may valuable to further develop software that recognises this potential of mobile access.

IntroductionHospitals are increasingly looking for mobile solutions to meet their information technology needs. Medical professionals are using personal mobile devices to support their work, because of limitations in both time and space. Our aims were to assess smartphone use amongst UK surgical doctors, the prevalence of medical app use and online activity.MethodsA thirteen-item questionnaire was derived to identify the proportion of surgical doctors of all grades using smartphones within the workplace. The following factors were evaluated: use of medical apps; use of online medical resources and if users were willing to use their own smartphone for clinical use.ResultsA total of 341 participants were surveyed with a complete response rate: 93.5% of which owned a smartphone, with 54.2% of those owning medical apps and 86.2% using their device to access online medical resources.Junior doctors were more likely to use medical apps over their senior colleagues (p = 0.001) as well as access the Internet on their smartphone for medical information (p < 0.001).Overall, 79.3% stated that they would be willing to use their smartphone for clinical use, which was found not to be dependent on seniority (p = 0.922).ConclusionOnline resources contribute significantly to clinical activities with the majority of smartphone users willing to use their own device. The information gathered from this study can aid developers to create software dedicated to the smartphone operating systems in greatest use and to potentially increase the use of a bring your own device (BYOD) scheme.