SMS-Based Follow-Ups to Improve Post-Discharge Surgical Outcomes

Post-operative follow up with patients is critical to providing high quality and cost effective care. In the current standard of care, patients receive verbal instructions from their physician along with discharge paperwork that outlines best practices for self-care. Unfortunately, difficult instructions can be miscommunicated or be overwhelming, and patients often leave confused, resulting in poor patient care post-discharge and high 30-day readmission rates. Medication adherence represents a crucial area for follow-up, as it is a major determinant of high-quality outcomes for post-operative care. Specifically, over 50% of patients in the U.S. either forget to or don't correctly take their prescription medications. Non-adherence causes nearly 10% of all hospital admissions in the U.S. and 125,000 annual deaths.

In a survey of 10,000 patients, the most common reported reason for missing medications was forgetfulness (24%), followed by perceived side effects (20%), high drug costs (17%), and perception that a prescribed medication would have little effect on their disease (14%). The majority of the factors contributing to non-adherence could therefore be resolved by longitudinally addressing forgetfulness and misconceptions about medication effectiveness, options for treatment, and side effects.

An SMS patient engagement case-management platform (Memora Health, Boston, MA) has been created that enables providers to input a new medication regimen into a web-based, HIPAA compliant app that then sends text message reminders to the patient to take their medication. Communication is two-way, therefore not only helping to improve adherence and self-management for the patient, but also providing care staff with more data on the post-discharge behavior and care satisfaction of their patients. While the value of SMS-based interventions on health outcomes is abundant in the literature, there is a paucity of data evaluating the impact of SMS follow-up on improving surgical outcomes through improved medication adherence and early detection of SSI. The purpose of this study is to utilize Memora Health, a platform that leverages mobile messaging as a medium for advancing preventive care, to improve the quality of post-operative care delivered to patients, and thereby improve patient satisfaction as well as reducing readmissions.

Inclusion criteria

• Patient has a working cell phone that can send and receive SMS/Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) over the next three months
• Patient has a working cell phone with a camera
• Being able to read and write fluently in English
• All patients identified in the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) with International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 codes for patients who underwent procedures with external wounds and can be at risk of surgical site infection (SSI). Only patients falling under the categories of 'Major Diagnostic' and 'Major Therapeutic' will be considered.

Exclusion criteria

• Patient deceased prior to discharge
• Patient transferred to another hospital
• Patient has a terminal illness with less than 3-month expected survival
• Vulnerable populations including patients who are in the middle of a pregnancy or prisoners