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CHICAGO—Suleman Bhana, MD, a rheumatologist at New York-based Crystal Run Healthcare, calls himself a “technology nerd,” but judging by his review of tech tools at the 2018 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, you don’t have to geek out to embrace technology in your rheumatology practice. You just have to like simplicity and saving money.
“We have a tool with us at all times, something that’s always in our pocket and rapidly advancing that we could use for patients,” he said. “And that is our smartphone.”
The smartphone, Dr. Bhana said—he held up his iPhone X as proof of his tech-nerd qualifications—is helping harness patient-derived data for research studies and is interfacing with the modern devices (e.g., ultrasound devices that can plug into a phone) gradually replacing older, bigger and more expensive technology.