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  1. Georgina Gould1,
  2. Ramin Nilforooshan2
  1. 1St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey, Surrey, UK
  2. 2Brain Science Unit, Abraham Cowley Unit, Chertsey, Surrey, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Georgina Gould, St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey, Surrey KT16 0PZ, UK; georgiegould{at}doctors.org.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjinnov-2016-000116

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    The first smartphone was launched only 8 years ago and already in that time enormous advances have been made in mobile phone technology. It is now possible to transmit a myriad of data forms at the touch of a button, such as pictures, videos and Global Position System coordinates. It is estimated that, in the UK, approximately 72% of the population and 98.9% of doctors currently own a smartphone, with numbers continuing to rise.1

    In hospitals, communication between doctors is ‘formally’ conducted via pagers. First introduced in the 1950s, the system is out-dated and impractical by today's standards. Contacting another doctor involves locating a landline, dialling their four-digit bleep number along with that phone extension, and then anchoring yourself to the phone and waiting for it to ring. In the meantime, you will be unable …

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    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.