how is it used in ROmania , an online study

1. Using of the internet and mobile
apps, at work, by the medical
personnel from Romania
Dr. Mihai Negrea

2. About
• Before developing an app for medical doctors in Romania we wanted
to know if there is interest
• To learn how doctors use mobile devices
• Computers
• Internet connection at work
• And if they use it for work purposes or not

3. How?
• We developed a questionnaire
• We`ve put it on the website www.DrGrouper.ro
• It wasn’t publicly available only by certain link
• We advertised it to people interested in medicine- profession doctors
on Facebook also based on their University studies and age (25-65
years) both men and women
• Budget spent 100 LEI to send the add. We got 227 valid answers out
of 339 clicks (66.69%)

4. The Ad – Boosted Post

6. Results
• Professional degree- Consultant 30.39% Resident MD 48.01% Registrar MD
21.58%
• General Practitioner 11.01%, clinical physicians 80.17%, paraclinic physicians
8.81%
• 98.68% have smartphones
• 60.35% also own a tablet
• 91.62% – have internet connection on their own terminals
• 37.44% don`t have access to internet from the hospital/unit they work in
• 14.97% have bad connection to internet at work
• 5.28% don`t use internet at work

7. When they need medical/professional
information at work
• 98.23% use internet at work to find professional information
• Consultants use smartphones – 69.56%, laptop or pc – 27.53%, and
books 2.89%.
• Registrar MDs – 79% use smartphones, 20.42% laptop or PC
• Residents MDs – 88.99% smartphones, 9.17% use laptop or pc, 1.83%
use books

8. Willing to pay for medical apps
• Consultants – 43.47%
• Registrar MDs – 34.69%
• Resident MDs – 35.77%

9. Discussions
• It was only an online questionnaire – so we could target the MDs that
use Facebook and internet
• We didn`t mean to use these data as scientific data about app usage
so we don`t have information about gender, age, or medical
specialization
• We would`ve need some control questions but in the start-up
environment it`s difficult to make big questionnaires
• Also the only incentive was full access before launching the
DrGrouper app and future development to premium app

10. Conclusions
• For Romanian medical doctors internet is the first choice for looking
for professional information
• Resident Mds are more likely to use their phones to search for
information
• Consultants are more likely to pay for professional apps or access to
information
• Books are not the first choice to look for information regardless of the
professional degree
• Although we know this a significant range of hospitals and medical
units don`t have internet access
• We can presume that there is a commercial market for professional
apps for MDs

11. Further studies
• Studies on hospital or medical units – about behavior regarding
technology and solutions for doctors
• Studies about commercial development of medical apps and websites
• Studies about scientific validity of medical apps and liability