Healthcare Applications for Smartphones

Abstract

Smartphones provide both advanced mobile communications and portable computing in a single handheld device. The number of smartphone users is growing rapidly, including among healthcare professionals. Many medical applications for smartphones have been developed and are widely used by health professionals and patients. The use of smartphones is getting more attention in healthcare day by day. Medical applications make smartphones useful tools in the practice of evidence-based medicine at the point of care, in addition to their use in mobile clinical communication. Also, smartphones can play a very important role in patient education, disease self-management, and remote monitoring of patients. In this article, the authors present healthcare applications for smartphones in three user groups: healthcare professionals, medical or nursing students, and patients.