"We quickly learned how to write an iOS application," he notes, and today UC Irvine Medical Center has three it makes available through its own internal apps store: a paging app for clinicians to look up anyone and page them; a so-called "way-finding" app that's a flexible directional map; and a survey application related to patient care.

One reason for all the iOS enthusiasm is because UC Irvine Medical Center's vendor Allscripts, which supplies the electronic medical record software, started developing apps for Apple iOS. This influenced the hospital and teaching institution to stick to iOS as a base for internal apps development, Gold says.

Most of the campus focus these days is on Apple IOS and tablets, since that appears to be the most popular there, but the same process is also been applied to Android devices, too.

Ellen Messmer is senior editor at Network World, an IDG publication and website, where she covers news and technology trends related to information security. Twitter: MessmerE. E-mail: emessmer@nww.com.

in Network World's Anti-malware section.