Research firm Kalorama cites high rates of physician use of smartphones and PDAs and available applications among many factors making healthcare ideal for smartphone sales.
In 2009, PDAs and smartphones for healthcare applications were worth about $2.6 billion combined, according to Kalorama's recent report, Handhelds in Healthcare: The World Market for PDAs, Tablet PCs, Handheld Monitors & Scanners.
Kalorama notes that the industry is no stranger to portability with healthcare professionals being key consumers of beeper and pager devices, and many portable patient record and reference book products have been aimed at physicians.
Currently healthcare is just a fraction of total smartphone and PDA sales, about five percent of the total market, however Kalorama predicts that healthcare is one of the growth areas – particularly for smartphones, because of their ability to combine communication with alerts, references and records.
"Healthcare is a mobile profession and lends itself to these devices," according to Bruce Carlson, publisher of Kalorama Information. "They provide a wide range of conveniences and workflow efficiencies that can't be achieved with traditional notepads and pocket drug references."
The firm notes that several wireless companies have tailored their product offerings to the needs of the healthcare industry and expects this to continue.
Among them, Socket Mobile, Inc., which last year released the SoMo 650Rx hospital-grade PDA featuring an antimicrobial material that provides improved protection against the spread of bacteria and microbes. Motorola's MTC100 offers a host of features designed to enhance productivity and effectiveness – equipped with multi-mode wireless connectivity, secured wide-area data bearer, and wireless LAN connection. In 2006, Beiks LLC released a talking English-Spanish translator for the BlackBerry platform (RIM) for emergency workers.
iPhone use in healthcare is evidenced by the number of applications available for physicians, notes the report. Various media outlets have reported more than 1,700 medical apps existed as of last year, and that number has most likely grown since then.
Click here to access the full report, including more information on tablet PCs, smartphones, PDAs, as well as handheld monitors and scanners, with forecasts for each of these segments. Profiles of competitors and trends in handheld technology in healthcare are also included.
