Sixty five percent of nurses use a mobile device at work for professional purposes and for at least 30 minutes every day, according to a survey of 2,498 nurses by Wolters Kluwer Health. The company recruited 1,921 practicing nurses, 386 nurse academics, 135 who are retired, and 56 other nurses.

"These findings largely mirror what we are seeing outside the hospital, that use of mobile devices to access online information, the internet and social sites are becoming part of the social fabric both personally and professionally," Wolters Kluwer Health Chief Nurse Judith McCann said in a statement. "Although these findings may not reflect the actual policies of these institutions, what's interesting are the perceptions of the nurses who work there, and what we learned is that nurses are frequently incorporating the use of mobile devices, online resources and, to some extent, social media into their daily workflow."

The study also found that within the group of practicing nurses, 20 percent of nurses that use mobile devices every day for work use them two hours or more. Nurses who work in hospitals said that 95 percent of healthcare organizations let them visit websites and other online resources for clinical information while working.

Of those organizations that allow the use of online resources, 89 percent of healthcare organizations allow nurses to use search engines, 64 percent allow nurses to use Wikipedia, 37 percent allow nurses to use YouTube, and 32 percent allow nurses to use LinkedIn. Additionally, 48 percent of nurses in the healthcare field said their organizations even encouraged them to use websites and online resources to access clinical information during the workday.

Less than 30 percent of healthcare organizations allow nurses to use Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Nurse managers are more likely to use mobile devices at work than staff nurses. Seventy seven percent of nurse managers use mobile devices at work compared to 58 percent of staff nurses. Of these groups that use mobile devices, 47 percent of nurse managers use iPhones compared to 31 percent of staff nurses. Twenty nine percent of nurse managers use iPads compared to 12 percent of staff nurses.