AirStrip Technologies launched Airstrip Patient Monitoring on Apple's iTunes App Store, following a major industry trend that leverages smartphones and tablet devices as useful tools for medical professionals.

The new app sends critical patient information directly from hospital monitoring systems, bedside devices and electronic health records to a clinician's mobile device. The company has produced both an iPhone and iPad version of the app. The iPad version has a few unique functions, such as dynamic and interactive patient monitoring surveillance screens that allow a user to follow the real-time waveforms of several patients at once.

The apps are free, but the facility where a clinician works must have Airstrip enabled within their in-house monitoring systems.  

"The power, UI and screen size of the iPad, coupled with a native AirStrip application, has allowed us to create new patient monitoring functionality that has not been seen before on a mobile device," said Trey Moore, AirStrip Technologies' co-founder and CEO, in a statement. "We have taken a powerful patient monitoring solution and made it even more feature-rich, something we plan to continue to quickly innovate on and extend into our forthcoming AirStrip Cardiology application."

Airstrip won't be the only developer creating apps for healthcare professionals. According to research released this week by Berlin-based Research2Guidance, smartphone applications will enable the mHealth industry to reach 500 million of a total 1.4 billion smartphone users by 2015.

"Our findings indicate that the long-expected mobile revolution in healthcare is set to happen. Both healthcare providers and consumers are embracing smartphones as a means to improving healthcare," said Ralf-Gordon Jahns, head of research at research2guidance, in a press release.

Not only are consumers taking advantage of smartphones to manage and improve their own health, the research shows that 43 percent of mHealth applications are primarily designed for healthcare professionals. These include CME (continued medical education), remote monitoring and health care management applications.

Research2Guidance says there are currently 17,000 mHealth applications in major app stores, 74 percent of which are paid apps. The firm concludes that as more traditional healthcare providers join the mobile applications market, the business models will broaden to include healthcare services, sensor, advertising and drug sales revenues.