Comments on: An iPhone or Blackberry for doctors and medical students?

By: David Deitsch, RN

David Deitsch, RN — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:00:15 +0000

Just a little comment on study methodology: Your survey of Google entries is interesting and usefull, however, I am not sure that it is a valid indicator of physician preferences. Most articles about smartphones are written by “techies,” not the physicians that use these devices. So, we can only say that more is wrtten on the Internet about the BB. I also appreciate Jeff Brandt’s observation that only AT&T supports the iPhone, a confounder that will influence many physician’s (and other users) choice for reasons that have nothing to do with the strengths and limitations of the two systems.

By: Glenda Valencia, M.D.

Glenda Valencia, M.D. — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:03:44 +0000

I had my BB for 2 years and Honestly, I feel as though you can accomplish a good deal more with the iPhone.Just a smooth transition from Internet to Research straight to Documents and Presentations. (YAY to Documents To Go!) I’m carrying a wee bit computer in my pocket and it’s worth every penny.

By: Jeff Brandt

Jeff Brandt — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:00:29 +0000

Bone MD, Interesting quote do you have a ref? You are referring to the new culture of “Google”. Many thing will change very fast. Wait till all of the HR records are digital, The the sky is the limit. Decision support will be on your phone. As I mention the Future is now. Is it better? not sure, but that is where we are going and we are not going to go back.

Jeff Brandt

By: Dr Portnay

Dr Portnay — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:14:12 +0000

People love their smart phones. People tend to get very attached to their phones. We live in a great time when their are 4 really good platform’s out there right now: BlackBerry, iPhone, Android and Palm WebOS.

I think the iPhone is an amazing device – its just not for me. The following article sums up many of the reasons I like the BlackBerry experience more than the iPhone for my needs in my practice: http://www.blackberrycool.com/2009/09/14/blackberry-vs-iphone-like-you-needed-another-reason-to-go-blackberry/

Also for all of you out there using BlackBerry devices and want to try and adding medical apps – here are two decent articles (besides my blogpost above):

http://blackberrysync.com/2009/09/medicine-3-0s-25-essential-blackberry-apps-for-health-and-fitness/

http://www.cio.com/article/498472/Dr._BlackBerry_Eight_Apps_Making_Medicine_More_Mobile

By: Bone MD

Bone MD — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:52:43 +0000

While using gadgets like Iphones or blackberry tend to increase a physician or medical students productivity, I’m quite concerned with this “…med students are four times more likely to consult a mobile reference for a clinical question than ask their own attending physician.”
With the trend going towards that extreme, the medical education program will one day find itself an “iphone/blackberry/android attending” teaching our young medical students. Will that be a better?

By: keshav

keshav — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:12:07 +0000

Android phones will take over both iPhones and blackberries soon

By: Nuclear Fire

Nuclear Fire — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:10:30 +0000

I disagree with Dr. P. The Blackberry is not hands down a better communication tool. Also, it does support exchange. Overall, I agree with sajabla. This is silly. Blackberry and Apple are merely tools that are rapidly improving. They’ll continue to improve and compete becoming better all the time…or they’ll stagnate and someone else will come up with something better. Ah, competition.

I personally like my iPhone and have found not only the applications quite nice and useful but I’ve been amazed to have patients notice my iphone and then ask to email me pictures of rashes they took that have subsequently resolved. I also have found it useful to show patients pictures of visual symptoms like Raynaud’s or discoid lupus at the bedside and have them see if that’s what they’re trying to describe. The patients seem to appreciate the use of technology.

I’m looking forward to the future are blackberry, apple and google compete an improve their products to our benefit.

By: Jeff Brandt

Jeff Brandt — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:32:02 +0000

I would like to explain the differences in these phones and their use for Medical Informatics.

Blackberry:
It’s success is based on their integration with Microsoft Exchange. IT department have to support exchange so they support Blackberry. Other than that Blackberry has little to offer in the future of Medical Applications. My predictions is that Blackberry will be deprecated over time along with Exchange.

iPhone:
Cool way cool, it is the new Breitling watches, lots of gadgets, but for real medical application it’s Operating System (OS) is very limiting. The OS is single threaded, that is, It can do only one job at a time. If you are looking at a chart and you get a call the chart app will shut down. Apple is also a “walled garden”, a closed system. You can not even print or backup data from an App. The other issue is that there is no keyboard. Users that are moving from Blackberry see this a major block to acceptance. iPhone is also only available on one carrier, AT&T. For many users AT&T is not a acceptable choice.

Apple has the power to change but it has not been their policy in the past. The enterprise is not their forte.

Google Android:
Android is not a Phone it is an OS. This year there will be 18 phones released by different manufactures to multiple carrier. These phones will have different features such as keyboard so the user has the choice of the phone and carrier that meets their needs. This is the dark horse that has the power to be the best OS available for Medical enterprise application. The Android OS is open, that is, you can change the OS to do what is needed to perform a task. The OS is multi-threaded, i.e., the OS can perform one task at a time and you can easily switch between apps.
Today, this is the best choice for enterprise medical application. But, this to may change.

Jeff Brandt http://www.motionPHR.com for the iPhone
http://www.myMedBox.info for the Android

By: sajabla

sajabla — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:05:34 +0000

this is silly. more physicians are choosing iphone for the same reason more consumers in general are choosing iphone. it would be more relevant if more physicians were going against the consumer trend.

By: Dr Portnay

Dr Portnay — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:45:40 +0000

As a busy Interventional Cardiologist, what I really need is the most powerful communications tool available. This is hands down, a Blackberry.

The iPhone is cool but it does not suit my needs of being the ultimate tool for communications.

As I progressed from medical, through internship, residency, and fellowship, I found my need for online/mobile resources dramatically decrease. I’m not surprised that more and more Medical Student choose an iPhone.

I’ve written about my uses of my BlackBerry in the following blog post: http://drportnay.blogspot.com/2009/08/blackberry-invaluable-tool-for.html