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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 …
Footnotes
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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