Mobile security a primary concern for docs

Seventy percent of healthcare respondents in a recent survey conducted by research firm KLAS indicated that they are using mobile devices to access clinical applications from almost every major electronic medical record vendor, including Allscripts, Cerner, Epic, GE, McKesson, Meditech, and Siemens. Eighty percent of respondents said they used McKesson to view data on a mobile device, while Epic had the second highest percentage of clients (74 percent).

Nevertheless, despite the broad usage of smartphones and tablets, few providers who were surveyed gave their clinical applications high usability ratings. Epic had the highest usability score of any of the EMR vendor in the KLAS 2012 "Mobile Applications: Can Enterprise Vendors Keep Up?" report, while MEDITECH received the lowest usability rating.  

According to the report, more providers use Apple than any other mobile device, which has been fueled by healthcare user preference as physicians bring their own devices into organizations to help them provide patient care. The vast majority of organizations in the survey (94 percent) use Apple, while Samsung and Motorola only garnered 26 percent and 25 percent of organizations using these devices, respectively. When it comes to operating systems, not surprisingly, Apple's iOS dominated with Android and Microsoft coming in second and third, at 49 percent and 44 percent, respectively.

"With the increased use of personal mobile devices in healthcare becoming more prevalent, providers are very concerned about controlling what data is accessed, where it is stored, and how the data can be protected," report author Erik Westerlind said in a statement.

Patient data security is a primary concern in the KLAS survey, as well, as the number of clinicians using mobile devices to access medical information continues to increase. To address these security concerns, healthcare providers have deployed virtualization software (52 percent), used encryption (43 percent), and/or utilized mobile device management software (35 percent).

For more information:
- here's the KLAS announcement