In the opening keynote at last month's HIMSS10 conference and exhibition, Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse put forth the call.

"Healthcare faces a once-in-a-lifetime combination of great challenges and breathtaking possibilities," he noted. "There is an historic opportunity for wireless to transform healthcare by boosting efficiency, raising quality and reducing costs."

Hesse pointed out that two thirds of physicians use smartphones today – and more than 80 percent will be using them in two years. "High mobile phone penetration provides an incredible opportunity … to improve healthcare and healthcare access, regardless of location, age, gender or disability,” he said.

As smartphones have proliferated, smartphone apps have exploded. Google's Android Market, the second largest app store, has 500 health-related apps, and BlackBerry's App World lists almost 150.

Of course the vast majority of healthcare apps are created for use on Apple's iPhone and – as of this month – the new iPad.

According to a study of mobile health apps conducted by MobiHealthNews, Apple's app store features about 5,000 apps – roughly half of them for medical reference. More than 9 percent are calculators, 7 percent for EMR and operations, 3 percent for prenatal and infant care and another 3 percent for chronic disease management.

A look at the galaxy of iPhone apps showcased at HIMSS10 bears out the growing popularity and utility of such mobile tools.

John Gomez, the vice president and chief technology strategy officer of Eclipsys, the Atlanta-based maker of CPOE and revenue cycle and access manage solutions, is just one executive who's excited about the trend – especially so about his company's new suite of apps for the iPhone and the iPod touch, which, Gomez said, go beyond "just migrating desktop paradigms to smart phones," and instead explore designs that are "more animated, more dynamic."

First, said Gomez, it's important to recognize that it's ineffective to design one-size-fits-all apps that "span clinicians." Instead, "you have to have solutions that are specific to a nurse or a physician."

Moreover, says Eclipsys president and CEO Philip M. Pead, his
company's aim is to develop apps that are inherently useful to the physician, not simply at the point of care, but from the moment they wake up till the moment they go to bed."

"How do you get from Starbucks with your latte to talking with the nurse?" Gomez explains. "Once you get to the hospital, how do you find out which nurse is treating your patient? What happens when you find that something's changed with your patient? How do you actually interact with that patient, what do you do to treat him, and what are the safety risks? It's the whole piece. Looking at that interaction and that workflow, looking at a day in the life of a physician, has helped changed how we're designing our apps."

Developers of Eclipsys apps – which are built on its Helios platform and are designed for the iPhone, but may soon be launched for the Google Android and Microsoft Mobile – undertake extensive clinical observation, and the design process uses simulated hospital floors to help envision "situational awareness" and limit the need for clinicians to stop what they're doing in order to take in information.

The result is a suite of mobile tools that are adaptable and intuitive, allowing doctors to view lab results or vital signs, enter orders, study test results and view images, all while moving unimpeded through their workday.

"Eclipsys has taken its thorough understanding of the problems with current mobile solutions to deliver to the market a disruptive mobile technology that will revolutionize nursing throughput and physician efficiency," said Denis Baker, chief information officer of Sarasota Memorial Hospital. "I firmly expect Eclipsys' smart phone suite will reflect a clear vision of leveraging new technology to enhance collaboration and patient time to treatment by augmenting the care team's understanding of the patient while they are on the move."