Abstract
Unfortunately, many patients in the United States experience disparities in access
to surgical care, including geographic constraints, limited transportation and time,
and financial hardships. Living in a “surgical care desert” results in a delay in
care, driving up health care costs and reducing quality of care. In the age of COVID-19,
patient access to health care has been further diminished by physical distancing guidelines,
naturally increasing the need for innovative telehealth solutions. In this review,
we focus on using smartphones for mobile health technology (mHealth) in the delivery
of surgical care. This study is aimed at a general surgical audience that may be interested
in exploring how mHealth can improve both access and health care quality for surgical
patients and their families. We review the current uses of mHealth by surgeons for
surgical site infection, new models of the perioperative surgical home, acute care
surgical triage, remote patient monitoring devices, and evaluation and management
of surgical consultations in the patient's home. We also review institutional and
governmental barriers to the adoption of mHealth and offer some preliminary solutions
that may aid the surgeon who wishes to implement this technology in their day-to-day
practice.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Journal of Surgical ResearchAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Disparities in access to emergency general surgery care in the United States.Surgery. 2018; 163: 243-250
- The effectiveness of mobile-health technology-based health behavior change or disease management interventions for health care consumers: a systematic review.PLoS Med. 2013; 10: e1001362
- Identification of important features in mobile health applications for surgical site infection surveillance.Surg Infect (Larchmt). 2019; 20: 530-534
- Perioperative surgical home models.Anesthesiol Clin. 2018; 36: 677-687
- Perioperative smartphone apps and devices for patient-centered care.J Med Syst. 2015; 39: 102
- A continuum of interfaces to engage surgical staff in efficient collaboration.J Med Syst. 2019; 43: 1-9
- Using patient engagement platforms in the postoperative management of patients.Curr Rev Musculoskelet Med. 2020; 13: 479-484
- Multiregional utilization of a mobile device app for triage and transfer of burn patients.J Burn Care Res. 2018; 39: 858-862
- Expert outpatient burn care in the home through mobile health technology.J Burn Care Res. 2018; 39: 680-684
- Assessment of physical activity by wearable technology during rehabilitation after cardiac surgery: explorative prospective monocentric observational cohort study.JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2019; 7: e9865
- Initial experience with telemonitoring in left ventricular assist device patients.J Thorac Dis. 2019; 11: S853-S863
- Mobile fact sheet: mobile phone ownership over time.(Available at:)
- Internet/broadband fact sheet.https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-broadbandDate: 2019Date accessed: December 9, 2020
Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 19, 2021
Accepted:
December 29,
2020
Received in revised form:
December 28,
2020
Received:
November 2,
2020
Identification
Copyright
© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
