A Simple Guide to Digital Device Usage of Pharmacists

by Jaime Brewster

Kantar Media asked more than 1,100 retail and hospital full-time pharmacists about their mobile device usage for professional purposes in the 2012 Pharmacy Sources & Interactions Study.

Results reveal that about half of all pharmacists are using some type of smartphone for professional purposes.

Here's more of a deeper dive:

• Among pharmacist smartphone users, the iPhone (59%) is the device most frequently mentioned, followed by the Android phones (31%) and the Blackberry bringing up the rear with a mere 9% of mentions. One interesting tidbit: There was a higher percentage of Android mentions among Retail Pharmacists (33%) than Health System Pharmacists (22%).
• Overall, only 14% of full-time pharmacists use tablets for professional purposes, with no significant difference in usage between retail and health systems pharmacists. Managers in both sectors had only a slightly higher percentage of mentions than their staff.
• Comparing results from the Sources & Interactions Medical/Surgical edition to the Pharmacist edition shows that pharmacists are much more likely to use their mobile devices for patient education than physicians. However a higher percentage of physicians report using a tablet for medical recordkeeping.

Source: Sources & Interactions Study, Pharmacy 2012