Researchers from the Imperial College London found that patient confidentiality may be threatened by medics' use of smartphone messaging apps in relaying information to the health care team.
Studies on the use of modern digital devices such as tablets and smartphones in the healthcare profession have produced unprecedented level of interest. One of the possible reasons for this is the increasing number of medical staff using these technologies in the workplace for work-related tasks.
In this new study, researchers performed an updated cross-sectional survey among multiple centers to know the rates and uses of smartphones and tablets among doctors and nurses while in the clinical setting.
At the initial study piloting, 2,107 doctors and 4,069 nurses working in five hospitals were invited to participate. The doctors were asked to answer a survey containing 38 items, while the nurses were given a 36-item test to complete.
The findings of the study, which were based on answers from 287 doctors and 564 nurses, showed that 98.9 percent of doctors and 95.1 percent of nurses have a smartphone. About 73.5 percent and 64.7 percent of doctors and nurses were also found to own a tablet respectively.
The percentage of doctors and nurses who find their smartphones as a very useful or useful tool in their clinical duties were 92.6 percent and 53.2 percent respectively.
Medical apps are also being owned by 89.6 percent of doctors and 67.1 percent of nurses, saying that these are being utilized as part of their clinical practice.
The study also found that the participants are using various types of messaging services available through their devices. Among these messaging platforms include short-message-script messaging (64.7 percent of doctors and 13.8 percent of nurses), app-based messaging (33.1 percent and 5.7 percent) and picture messaging (46.0 percent and 7.4 percent).
"It is apparent that large proportions of doctors are using messaging services to convey patient-related clinical information to colleagues," said the authors. They added that more than a quarter think that such data are still on their devices.
These messaging modalities are said to be unsecure and may lead to the unintentional release of sensitive patient information, specifically if the handset is lost, stolen or accessed by unauthorized persons.
A campaign group called medConfidential had sent a warning to doctors about sharing information that could breach patient confidentiality. According to them, health apps are still under-regulated and that some apps, particularly those that are defective, may pose harms to patients. "Both staff and healthcare organisations should be encouraged to risk assess the medical apps prior to their use in order to mitigate such dangers," they advised.
The study was published in the journal BMJ Innovations on Wednesday, Oct. 7.
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