Spyglass Consulting Group, a market consulting and intelligence firm from Menlo Park, Calif., released a study which states 80 percent of physicians believe Apple iPad has a promising future in healthcare but they are skeptical that it is ready to transform patient care delivery today. The study, Point of Care Computing for Physicians 2012, shows trends how U.S.-based physicians are using mobile solutions at point of care to streamline productivity, enhance patient safety, and reduce the risk of medical errors.

According to Spyglass, 98 percent of physicians interviewed have embraced mobile computing devices to support their personal and professional workflows. Mobile device adoption, the report states, is being driven by technology innovation including easy-to-use, low-cost, lightweight mobile devices, widespread cellular broadband availability (3G/4G), and cloud-based ecosystem to support Internet-connected applications, and the emergence of location-based services.

Yet despite this, the study found 75percent of physicians interviewed reported that hospital IT was resistant to supporting personal mobile devices on the corporate network. Hospital IT, the report states, believes personal devices are insecure, less reliable, and more expensive to deploy, support and maintain than desktop computers.

In the report, 83percent of physicians interviewed were using desktop computers as their primary device for accessing corporate assets and patient data whether they were at the hospital, in their office, or at home. Physicians were found to be using mobile devices to access clinical information when they were outside of their normal working environment.