PALM SPRINGS, CA – The iPhone has been getting a lot of love lately from the medical community.

Apple's popular product was front-and-center at last month's Towards the Electronic Patient Record (TEPR+) show and conference in Palm Springs. Besides being included in the conference's focus on mobile health applications, a new application designed to connect physicians with electronic medical records was bestowed with a "Hot Product" mention.

CareTools, based in Westlake Village, Calif., earned second-place honors for its iChart. Thomas Giannulli, MD, the company's CEO, said the application has generated 100 new users a month since it was launched five months ago.

 "You don't have to add anything else," he said. "We've taken away every barrier (that doctors might have or think of) to using an EMR."

The iChart application is offered for a one-time fee of $139.99, with Web service offered for $99 a year after that (the first year is offered free of charge). The product is compliant with products certified by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) and features iNotes, iBilling, iPrescribing and iLab Reports. There's also an interface with Allscripts products.

Giannulli said iChart was created specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and the company is keeping an eye on smartphones being developed by Palm and Windows.

"We'll probably be the first on those platforms, too," he said.

The company is now working on an interface with Microsoft's HealthVault platform and is developing inbox capabilities for PHRs. Giannulli hopes to develop more uses for lab data and coordination with hospital data.

"The last mile is in the doctor's hand," he said.

The proliferation  -  and popularity  -  of healthcare-related applications for mobile devices was one of the key themes at TEPR+. The show and conference included presentations by Giannulli as well as executives from Diversinet, All One Health Group, WellDoc, BeWell Mobile Technology, Leap of Faith Technologies and M*Modal.

C. Peter Waegemann, CEO of the Boston-based Medical records Insttitute (which organizes TEPR+) and executive director of the Center for Cell Phone Applications in Healthcare, said more than 120 healthcare IT vendors have developed products for mobile devices like cellphones, smartphones and PDAs. He said the cellphone has developed from the "forbidden gadget" in the hospital to a physician's most popular tool.

Indeed, in the week after TEPR+, two more vendors launched solutions designed for the iPhone. The Community Health Network, based in Indianapolis, has introduced its myCommunity Pillbox application, while iTMP Technology, Inc., of Santa Barbara, Calif., announced the commercial launch of SMHeart Link, an application that collects data from distributed health and fitness sensors such as heart rate monitors and cycling sensors and sends it to the iPhone via Wi-Fi.