An interesting distraction

It's interesting how one good blog post or story can become a media trend.  I wish it had been one of mine, but I noted this article with commentary by John Halamka, which he also mentioned on his blog a few weeks ago.

It follows with these two:

• American Medical News: Doctors have to manage smartphone distractions
• iMedicalApps: Healthcare professionals becoming increasingly distracted by mobile devices

A bit of Googling gives:

• Fox News: Are Smartphones distracting doctors?
• Mobiledia: Mobile Devices Drive Doctors to Distraction 
• Examiner.com: Doctors must deal with smartphone distractions 
• KevinMD: Solving distracted doctoring from smartphones and tablets 

It appears to have started with this New York Times article: As Doctors Use More Devices, Potential for Distraction Grows

Most, but not all of the reporting cites either the NY Times article, or the AHRQ report that many of these stories seem to be built around.  Tracking this story through the web and social media has provided an interesting lesson in creating useful content, and an interesting distraction.

I use a cell-phone myself, but when I'm in a meeting, I let it go to voice-mail more often than not, and I don't have e-mail sent to my phone.  E-mail after all, was never designed to be instant messaging.

From a patient perspective, if a doctor ever answers or looks at a phone in my presence, I'll ask them to turn it off.  After all, it is still my healthcare.