Is Your Doctor distracted by his iPad?

Smartphones and tablets can be hazardous to your health. Consider that truck drivers and cabbies, police officers and road construction workers, and doctors and nurses like Facebook, texting, and Angry Birds just as much as you. And they do these things while at work, just like you.

iPads and Android tablets give physicians access to important data and many hospitals have invested to encourage data-driven decisions. But the challenge exists to keep doctors focused on the task at hand.

Hospitals are learning that tech can be distracting. The following info is mostly anecdotal, I mean, who's going to admit to this stuff. According toMatt Richtel at The New York Times, there was "the nurse who perused airfares while in surgery and the neurosurgeon who placed personal phone calls in the middle of an operation."

A recent survey showed that among technicians who operate cardio-pulmonary bypass machines, 55 percent admit to talking on cell phones during heart surgery, while 55 percent admit to sending text messages during the procedure.

Organizations need to manage mobile device use, especially when lives are at stake. At the same time, productivity is always at stake. Most organizations could use more productivity versus less. Mobile Device Management (MDM) tools are readily available to help organizations manage this tech-distraction challenge.

Source of stats: FierceCIO, December 16, 2011