Free access. The presence of powerful computers in the pockets of most patients should transform how we practise medicine. Yet changes in practice to date have remained modest and occurred only gradually.1 Applications of new technologies often only emerge once the underlying technologies have become ubiquitous and long passed the period of counting as new. As one writer put it: ‘Communication tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.’2 Once a technology reaches the stage of being taken for granted, it becomes easier to harness it for new functions and activities.