The Effect of Mobile App Follow-up Care on the Number of In-person Visits Following Ambulatory Surgery: A Randomized Control Trial.

Women's College Hospital (WCH) in Toronto offers specialized ambulatory surgical procedures. A feasibility study using a mobile appliciation (app) to supplement in-person follow-up care after surgery suggests that the mobile app adequately detects postoperative complications, eliminates the need for in-person follow-up care and is cost-effective. This is concordant with other postoperative telemedicine studies. The purpose of this study is to determine if we can avert in-person follow-up care through the use of mobile app compared to conventional, in-person follow-up care in the first month following surgery amongst breast reconstruction patients at WCH. This will be a pragmatic, single-centre, open, controlled, 2-arm parallel-group superiority randomized trial. Mobile app follow-up care is a novel approach to managing patients postoperatively with the potential to avert in-person follow-up and generate cost-savings for the healthcare system and patient.