SPECIAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Health information technology hasevolved with the advent of mobile de-vices (eg, smartphones, tablet computers), allowing greater access to both the public and medical professionals. In a recent sur-vey from the Pew Internet Research Cen-ter, 53 % of US adults were found to own a smartphone, 31 % of whom used their phone to search for health information and 19 % of whom had downloaded and used an application (app) to manage and moni-tor their health.1 Compared to public use of smartphones, it is estimated that 81 % of US physicians own smartphones.2 Indeed, surveys have demonstrated a high adop-tion of mobile devices by health care pro-fessionals for practice and education.3-5 With the rise in smartphone adoption, one large transformation in the use of mobile devices is the influx of more complex mobile apps. These apps have a large spectrum of functions, from gam-ing and media consumption to news and education. The benefits of apps lie in their ability to run independently of web-based browser access on a highly mobile platform. Apps can also be self-suffi-cient and not require internet access for use at all times, due to the ability to save information to the mobile device’s memory. This is especially the case when comparing web-based versus in-phone apps. Recently, mo-bile medical apps have found a niche among mobile de-vices, effectively turning smartphones and tablet comput-ers into medical tools for clinical references and decision-making devices.6,7 Pharmacists have demonstrated interest in the use of mobile devices in patient care.8,9 Research has shown that pharmacists use mobile devices to help serve as clinical references and point-of-care tools.10-12 Research has further demonstrated that the use of clinical references (eg, UpTo-Date) as point-of-care tools has helped streamline work-flows and increase productivity of health care profession-als.13,14 Many of these references are now available as mo