The Smartphone in Medicine:

a review of current and potential use among physicians
and students

Errol Ozdalga1*, MD; Ark Ozdalga2*, BS; Neera Ahuja1*, MD

1Stanford University Hospital, Stanford, CA, United States
2(not affiliated with an institution), San Jose, CA, United States
*all authors contributed equally
Corresponding Author:
Errol Ozdalga, MD

Stanford University Hospital
MC 5209
300 Pasteur Dr
Stanford, CA, 94305
United States
Phone: 1 4084992117
Fax: 1 8885617051
Email: eozdalga [at] stanford.edu

ABSTRACT

Background: Advancements in technology have always had major
impacts in medicine. The smartphone is one of the most ubiquitous
and dynamic trends in communication, in which one’s mobile phone
can also be used for communicating via email, performing Internet
searches, and using specific applications. The smartphone is one
of the fastest growing sectors in the technology industry, and its
impact in medicine has already been significant.
Objective: To provide a comprehensive and up-to-date summary of
the role of the smartphone in medicine by highlighting the ways in
which it can enhance continuing medical education, patient care,
and communication. We also examine the evidence base for this
technology.
Methods: We conducted a review of all published uses of the
smartphone that could be applicable to the field of medicine and
medical education with the exclusion of only surgical-related uses.
Results: In the 60 studies that were identified, we found many uses
for the smartphone in medicine; however, we also found that very
few high-quality studies exist to help us understand how best to
use this technology.
Conclusions: While the smartphone’s role in medicine and
education appears promising and exciting, more high-quality
studies are needed to better understand the role it will have in this
field. We recommend popular smartphone applications for
physicians that are lacking in evidence and discuss future
studies to support their use.

(J Med Internet Res 2012;14(5):e128)
doi:10.2196/jmir.1994

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Health Situation in the Americas: basic indicators 2012

Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization
(PAHO/WHO) - 2012


“…..This edition highlights the mortality due to external causes (EC);
those causes of death different from natural causes and recognized
as avoidable such as suicides, homicides and accidents. From the
data reported by the countries, it is estimated that over 5.5 million
people died from EC in the Region between 1999 and 2009.


Three and a half million deaths (64%) occurred among the young
and adult population (10-49 years old) with an average of 319,000
deaths per year; 84% of the deaths happened among males, five
times more deaths among men than women. The most frequent
causes were homicides (33%) and land transport accidents (26%).

Mortality from land transport accidents and homicides might be
associated with economic, educational, political, social, and cultural
factors. Also, they overburden the health care systems and pose a
high cost on society, in addition to the suffering of the victims and their
families6. In several countries of the Region the proportion of
population in productive ages regarding the number of the youngest
and the oldest are increasing, favoring their economic growth.

The negative potential impact of these deaths over this “demographic
bonus” is an important call to countries for action given the
preventability of these outcomes.

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World Health Statistics 2012

World Health Statistics 2012 contains WHO’s annual
compilation of health-related data for its 194 Member States,
and includes a summary of the progress made towards
achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) and associated targets.
This year, it also includes highlight summaries on the topics
of noncommunicable diseases, universal health coverage
and civil registration coverage.

Table of contents

Part I. Health-related Millennium Development Goals
Summary of status and trends

Regional and country charts


Part II. Highlighted topics

Noncommunicable diseases: a major health challenge of the 21st century

Health expenditures and universal coverage

Civil registration and vital statistics systems


Part III. Global health indicators

1. Life expectancy and mortality
2. Cause-specific mortality and morbidity
3. Selected infectious diseases
4. Health service coverage
5. Risk factors
6. Health workforce, infrastructure and essential medicines
7. Health expenditure
8. Health inequities
9. Demographic and socioeconomic statistics
10. Health information systems and data availability

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Using Internet Search Engines to Obtain Medical Information:

A Comparative Study

Liupu Wang1,2,3, PhD; Juexin Wang1, MS; Michael Wang4,
MD; Yong Li2, PhD; Yanchun Liang1, PhD; Dong Xu5, PhD

1Key Laboratory of Symbol Computation and Knowledge
  Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Computer
  Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun, China
2School of Mathematics, Jilin University, Changchun, China
3Department of Computer Science and Christopher S. Bond
   Life Sciences Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO,
   United States
4Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences and Ellis
  Fischel Cancer Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO,
  United States
5Department of Computer Science, University of Missouri, 
  Columbia, MO, United States

Corresponding Author:
Dong Xu, PhD

Department of Computer Science
University of Missouri
201 Engineering Building West
Columbia, MO,
United States
Phone: 1 573 884 1887
Fax: 1 573 882 8318
Email: xudong [at] missouri.edu

ABSTRACT
Background: The Internet has become one of the most important
means to obtain health and medical information. It is often the
first step in checking for basic information about a disease and
its treatment. The search results are often useful to general users.
Various search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and
Ask.com can play an important role in obtaining medical
information for both medical professionals and lay people.
However, the usability and effectiveness of various search
engines for medical information have not been comprehensively
compared and evaluated.
Objective: To compare major Internet search engines in their
usability of obtaining medical and health information.
Methods: We applied usability testing as a software engineering
technique and a standard industry practice to compare the four
major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Ask.com) in
obtaining health and medical information. For this purpose, we
searched the keyword breast cancer in Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and
Ask.com and saved the results of the top 200 links from each
search engine. We combined nonredundant links from the four
search engines and gave them to volunteer users in an
alphabetical order. The volunteer users evaluated the websites
and scored each website from 0 to 10 (lowest to highest) based
on the usefulness of the content relevant to breast cancer. A
medical expert identified six well-known websites related to
breast cancer in advance as standards. We also used five
keywords associated with breast cancer defined in the latest
release of Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine-Clinical
Terms (SNOMED CT) and analyzed their occurrence in the
websites.
Results: Each search engine provided rich information related to
breast cancer in the search results. All six standard websites were
among the top 30 in search results of all four search engines.
Google had the best search validity (in terms of whether a
website  could be opened), followed by Bing, Ask.com, and Yahoo!.
The search results highly overlapped between the search engines,
and  the overlap between any two search engines was about half
or more. On the other hand, each search engine emphasized
various types of content differently. In terms of user satisfaction
analysis, volunteer users scored Bing the highest for its usefulness,
followed by Yahoo!, Google, and Ask.com.
Conclusions: Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Ask.com are by and large
effective search engines for helping lay users get health and
medical information. Nevertheless, the current ranking methods
have some pitfalls and there is room for improvement to help
users get more accurate and useful information. We suggest that
search engine users explore multiple search engines to search
different types of health information and medical knowledge for
their own needs and get a professional consultation if necessary.

(J Med Internet Res 2012;14(3):e74)
doi:10.2196/jmir.1943

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