Almost Half of Doctors Use Smartphones to Reference Drug Data

by Jaime Brewster

In the Sources & Interactions Study, September 2013: Medical/Surgical Edition, physicians were asked to indicate which professional tasks they perform on a smartphone. Unsurprisingly, accessing the Internet and email rank highest among all doctors surveyed, while referencing drug data took the third spot. Almost half (47%) of all physicians say they use their smartphones to reference drug data – a 7% year-over-year increase – and 44% find/perform clinical calculations, up from 36% in 2012.

There are certain tasks that doctors are more likely to conduct on smartphone compared to a tablet and vice versa. For examples, more physicians use their smartphones to research specific clinical situations and get professional news updates. But more physicians say they use their tablets to complete CME credits/units, for meetings/conference information and to read articles from medical journals.

The Sources & Interactions™ Study is a detailed examination of doctors’ online and mobile activities, e-detailing experience, and exposure to (and evaluation of) information sources including traditional and emerging media, pharma reps, CME, convention and more. The study is conducted every six months and targets more than 3,000 physicians annually across 22 specialties, exploring their media preferences and habits. Sources & Interactions was designed to help marketers and their agencies cost-effectively allocate resources to their overall promotional mix, and provide publishers with specific insight about where their offerings fit into physicians (and other healthcare professionals’) information inventory.