CompTIA Report: Tablets Taking Hold in Healthcare Vertical

With all the focus on mobility and consumerization of IT, it can be easy to forget these trends aren’t just happening in the SMB and enterprise but in major verticals, too. CompTIA has released a report that shows tablet and mobile applications use are on the rise in the healthcare space. Channel implications as only The VAR Guy can give you, coming right up …

CompTIA’s Third Annual Healthcare IT Insights and Opportunities Study has been compiled from the answers of 350 healthcare providers or administrators including dentists and doctors. In addition, CompTIA surveyed 400 IT firms with healthcare IT practices. The result:

One-quarter of healthcare providers surveyed report currently using tablets within their practice. Another 21 percent expect to do so within 12 months. More than half of healthcare professionals surveyed currently use a smartphone for work purposes.

Of those physicians using mobile devices, “about 38 percent” of them are using mobile applications that are part of a regular routine, and within the next year CompTIA expects that figure will jump to 50 percent, based on the responses. Another 66 percent of those surveyed said implementation of mobile devices will become a “high or mid-level priority in the next 12 months.”

With all that mobile love comes the need for mobile security and, with healthcare, mobile electronic medical records (EMR) management that requires both protection and privacy compliance in addition to accessibility. That’s prime channel potential right there. What’s more, CompTIA found only 38 percent of healthcare facilities have a “comprehensive” EMR system in place, although of that 38 percent, 61 percent are satisfied with their implementation. Still, there’s plenty of room for VARs. CompTIA also noted that while 5 percent of physicians claim they’re using cloud-based services, there actually could be more who using SaaS-type applications and are unaware they are cloud-based apps. CompTIA sees this as an opportunity not just for growth, but also as an easier path to adoption once VARs explain the cloud to a healthcare professional.

The VAR Guy sees this as a unique time in the channel, where mobile technology and big-opportunity verticals are converging. Coming right out of Synnex Varnex 2011, our resident blogger can’t help but see a striking parallel between the mobility, cloud and vertical trends discussed among Synnex executives and the results of CompTIA’s survey. As we march along toward a post-PC world, with mobile devices becoming our main computing device of choice, it’s never been a better time to establish a foothold in the ever-growing verticals, especially with distribution companies making it easy to climb aboard.