Physicians have always been a mobile crowd — zipping between exam rooms, clinics, and hospitals.

Now, with the help of smartphones and wireless access, healthcare is becoming mobile too.

Through smartphone apps and handheld devices, the mobile health (or "mhealth") revolution is changing how patients manage their care, how physicians run their practices, and how the community connects to share information.

"Healthcare is fundamentally a mobile process," says Andy Barbash, a neurologist at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Md., who uses mhealth tools, such as secure messaging and virtual consults, in his daily practice. "People are mobile and professionals in healthcare are going around from room to room and hospital to hospital. It's not like they sit in one place. Technologies are catching up to the needs."

With mobile health tools, there seems to be fewer barriers to adoption (perhaps unlike with EHRs) and more excitement from physicians, which is fueling the revolution. EHR adoption has been advocated for years, but implementation has been slow, and experts say that's because the technology hasn't fit the practitioner's needs.

"There's no waiting. This is going to happen," Peter Waegemann, vice president of the mHealth Initiative, a Boston-based organization, says of mobile health adoption. "Patients are using it."

Barbash agrees, saying that physicians' inclination to implement EHRs was impacted by their ability (or lack thereof) to interact with the system through a mobile platform. "Lots of physicians won't invest in an EHR until it's mobile."

Barbash takes it one step further, explaining that it's a myth that physicians are slow to adopt technology in general. "They are slow to adopt the wrong technology," he says. And by many accounts, the diverse world of mobile health tools seems to be the right technology.

For those not yet plugged — or unplugged — into the revolution, it can seem a daunting path, with an exploding mobile apps market and nonstop real-time communication. But the benefits to adopting mobile health technologies are becoming clearer, and the industry is rising to meet physicians' unique needs. Here's your guide to mobile health, complete with help on overcoming concerns about the new platform and cutting through the noise to join the movement.

Why mhealth?

Ask five different people to define mobile health and you'll get five different definitions. As an evolving field, it hasn't quite been officially defined. To some, the term strictly refers to tasks that can be performed on a mobile device, such as a smartphone or health monitor.

Others have expanded the definition to include all computing done through a wireless connection.

"There's no established definition," says Joseph Kim, a physician technologist who runs mobilehealthcomputing.com, among other sites, adding the concept has continued to evolve, especially over the last year with the introduction of the iPad.

"The biggest message is that it's the use of mobile technologies in the healthcare setting for patients and providers," Kim says. It could encompass anything from sending and receiving text messages to accessing a full EHR.

Most importantly, mobile health is the push to get health information into the hands of physicians in the most effective way, says MGMA consultant Derek Kosiorek. "You will see a very strong trend toward these devices, because they are lightweight and it's easy to get data into their hands," he says.

The trend is becoming clear. A recent survey from PwC Health Research Institute found that 86 percent of physicians are interested in accessing EHRs wirelessly, 83 percent want to use mobile technology to prescribe medication, and 60 percent want to use mobile technology to communicate with patients.

Many physicians — about 72 percent and rising, according to Manhattan Research — are already using their smartphones and iPads to access clinical information and perform quick tasks. In coming years, more physicians are expected to use their smartphones for patient care, such as messaging though the EHR to staff or other doctors, or receiving clinical data directly from patients.

A few organizations are leading the way. For example, at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, physicians are using a mobile application to treat stroke patients in rural areas. Physicians can access and manipulate radiology images on their smartphones, as well as connect to seven rural hospitals.

Meanwhile, patient demand for mobile technology is rising, and countless apps have emerged to satiate the hunger. One-third of patients surveyed by PwC said they would use their smartphones to track and monitor their health, and 40 percent said they would even be willing to pay for a device that sends information directly to their physician.