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Yay. Another Physician Satisfaction Survey.

Business Week magazine profiles a physician who'll leave his stethoscope at home, but regards his iPhone as mission-critical;
"Apple's (AAPL) iPhone has become a critical tool for saving time and improving the quality of the care Diamond provides, particularly when he's with patients, he says. Of 22 applications Diamond has installed on his iPhone, 10 are health related. The most important, he says, is Epocrates Essentials, which lets him quickly check for drug interactions, look up disease symptoms, and find out what lab tests he might need to order. "I don't have everything I need to know memorized," Diamond says. "This makes me look like I do."

"...Diamond's experience shows that using the iPhone in a medical setting doesn't have to be a complicated, expensive proposition. With the exception of Epocrates—which costs $149 a year, or $249 for two years—all of Diamond's medical applications were either free or cost less than $5 to install. Using them saves him about an hour per working day. That's a pretty big savings for a professional who can see four or five patients an hour. "I work until 2 p.m. every day just to cover my overhead costs," he says. "Getting an extra hour is huge."
An extra hour in every work day. How many hospitals can say their elaborate medical staff satisfaction surveys and expensive physician sales teams offer as much benefit? Maybe it's time to stop asking physicians if they're satisfied and just give them what we all want: more time in each day. Inevitably, satisfaction follows.


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