Mobile apps in clinical practice

Abstract

Mobile applications (apps) are widely available, easy to use and integrated into medical education and evidence-based practice. Organisations and publishers are creating apps that offer access to clinical references and point of care tools. Considering the volume of apps that are available and the increasing discussions around the value of apps in a health care setting, we wanted to understand how clinicians make decisions about the apps they use for education and clinical practice. Austin Health Sciences Library recently undertook a collaborative research project with senior clinicians to investigate the use of apps for clinical reference and at the point of care. We developed and conducted an online survey of clinical staff to discover which apps they are using, and how they determined that these apps are reliable, relevant and appropriate for use in their clinical practice. The results of the survey presented a broad spread of apps for consideration and raised questions about the respondent’s definition of an “app”. Clinicians consider apps to be a useful tool in clinical practice and medical education. As librarians, we need to encourage our users to critically appraise apps in the same way they would any other source of information.