Health Care Apps- will they be a Facelift for Today's Medical/Dental Practice?

Abstract

Background: With the recent advent of smart phones, usage of medical apps is on rise. Smart phones are powerful devices that combine the conventional functions of a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities enabling users to access software applications commonly termed as ''apps''. Health care applications (apps) that are downloadable on to smart phones are increasingly becoming popular among clinicians. Aim:The aim of the present study was to assess the usage of health care apps among Medical and Dental doctors.Methodology: A descriptive cross sectional questionnaire based study was conducted on medical and dental doctors of Mamata hospitals, Khammam, Andhra Pradesh. A pretested, self administered questionnaire was used and it consists of questions regarding demographic data followed by usage of health care apps. Descriptive statistics were computed to demonstrate the frequency of responses and the comparisons were made using chi-square test. A p-value less than or equal to 0.05 was considered to be significant.Results: A total of eighty doctors (48 Medical and 32 dental) completed the questionnaire. More males (n 0 63) than females (n 017) participated in the study. Participants had a mean age of 32.5 years. It was found that 68% of dental doctors and 70.45% of medical doctors are using health care apps on their smart phone. Most of the participants (58.8% of dental and 77.4% medical doctors) use the health care apps for knowledge purposes, while no dental doctors used the apps for diagnosis or treatment purposes. The majority of the dental doctors (41.17%) are using these apps for patient education purpose when compared to the medical doctors (3.22%). Conclusion:There is a high usage rate of health care apps among both medical and dental doctors, with medical doctors using the apps for informational purposes, whereas dental doctors used the apps for patient education.

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