Postoperative Follow-up Via Text Messages Automated Versus Telephone in Patients With Continuous Regional Anesthesia

Communication with patients after performing any procedure under regional anesthesia is essential to evaluate pain control, measure patient satisfaction, and detect post-surgical and post-anesthetic complications.

However, for outpatients, achieving follow-up through phone calls can be a real challenge. Gessner et al report that successful daily telephone contact for patients discharged with a continuous perineural blocking catheter varies between 49 and 65%. While their results with the use of an automated messaging system, delivered results as promising as a response rate of 91%, considering a range of 18 to 90 years.

It is known that the mobile application market is expanding with great diversity on different devices. For this reason, there is great competition among application developers to create those that best fulfill the tasks proposed each day.

For this, the usability of mobile applications is a crucial tool to obtain a competitive advantage in these circumstances.

The significance of the expected results described above will open a door to the sequential or gradual implementation of a system that allows us to reduce the time and/or number of people required per day to achieve adequate follow-up of the patients. In addition, it would leave room for new projects that seek to devise an ordered work plan to identify the subgroup of patients who objectively require a live call to evaluate complications of the procedure.

The hypothesis is that the use of a mobile monitoring application in patients using postoperative continuous ambulatory regional analgesia is associated with usability levels equal to or higher than the 64th percentile measured on the SUS usability scale in its Spanish version.

To determine the degree of satisfaction that exists between the use of an automated system for the monitoring of patients undergoing continuous regional anesthesia at the UC-Christus Clinical Hospital. How much it impacts adherence to follow-up will also be reviewed, comparing it with the traditional method (telephone interview).

A convenience sample of 100 consecutive patients will be selected with continuous outpatient regional analgesia performed in the wards of the UC-Christus Clinical Hospital, San Carlos de Apoquindo Clinic and Santa Lucía Medical Center. For this, for a maximum period of 6 months, 100 patients will be randomly distributed into 2 groups, one for conventional telephone follow-up and the other for use of the app.

Inclusion criteria

• Elective surgery with continuous ambulatory regional analgesia
• Able to understand, use and operate a smartphone to view the mobile application
• ASA I - II

Exclusion criteria

• Ages under 17 or over 76 years
• Emergency surgery