According to a new study from the Menlo Park, Calif.-based research and advisory firm,  Spyglass Consulting Group, 69 percent of nurses at hospitals say they are using their smartphones for personal and clinical communications on the job. The report, “Point of Care Computing for Nursing 2012,” looked at the insights of more than 100 nurses working in acute care environments and found that the devices are helping them “fill in critical communication gaps” that come from the technologies provided by hospital IT.

However, leaders at hospitals aren’t as thrilled about the proliferation of these devices. “Hospital IT is concerned that personal devices on the hospital’s network pose a significant security threat to patient health information stored on the device or the network,” Gregg Malkary, managing director of Spyglass Consulting Group, said in a statement. “Supporting nursing ‘Bring Your Own Device’ initiatives would require hospital IT to define comprehensive mobile governance strategies and to deploy Enterprise-class tools to centrally monitor, manage and protect mobile devices, apps and data.”

Meanwhile, nurses say they aren’t as high on tablets as they are on smartphones. Ninety six percent interviewed for the study said first generation tablets aren’t the right device to support bedside nursing. They also expressed doubts about durability, infection control, limited data entry, and lack of native applications.