The healthcare industry is attempting to keep up with the speed at which new technologies are being developed, but digital transformation is a complicated process. Digital technologies are constantly evolving and impacting our personal and professional lives, and the rate of adoption varies as much among health care professionals as it does among the general public.
APLUSA conducted a market research study in order to attain insights on the ways in which doctors in France and the UK were adopting new digital technologies. Do they believe digital developments had a positive impact on their practice and the services they offer? Which devices do they use most frequently? What do they see as the negative impacts?
In 2018, we recruited 150 GPs in the UK and 194 GPs in France to partake in a study to provide insights on this topic.
Doctors’ Professional vs Personal Use of Digital Tech
Smartphones and Tablets: The Most Widely Used Devices
Unsurprisingly, the smartphone is the most widely used digital device among GPs in France and the UK, both professionally and personally, with 90% of respondents in both countries stating that they now use a smartphone at work. The second most frequently used device is the tablet with around half of GPs in both countries using them at work and over 80% using tablets at home.
Which Other Digital Devices Are Commonly Used by GPs?
The next most popular devices among GPs are smartwatches and voice assistants, but significantly fewer doctors are using these compared to smartphones and tablets. Only 8% of GPs in the UK and 14% in France use smartwatches professionally. The numbers drop again regarding the use of voice assistants; 7% and 3% of GPs in UK and France respectively use this technology professionally. The number of doctors using voice assistant for personal use is significantly higher, with 33% and 25% of doctors using voice assistant technology at home in the UK and France respectively. As such, it is predicted that the use of voice assistant at work will also increase in the future.
