Would patients undergo postoperative follow-up by using a smartphone application?

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Patient Monitoring
• mHealth

Background:

• eHealth applications offer remote patient monitoring solutions.
• This study investigated patient acceptance of smartphone-based physician monitoring.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess patient willingness to use smartphone applications for healthcare monitoring.
• To identify factors influencing the acceptance of mobile health applications.

Main Methods:

• A survey was conducted among smartphone users between September and December 2017.
• Both paper and web-based questionnaires were utilized to collect data.

Main Results:

• Over half of the 962 participants were older than 55 years.
• 68.7% of participants would accept smartphone app follow-up for personal health data.
• Data protection was the primary concern against app installation.

Conclusions:

• A majority of patients would accept mobile applications for collecting health data for postoperative follow-up.
• Patients perceive a direct benefit from using mobile applications for healthcare management.