Pre-loaded tablets have been found to improve the patient education and check-in process for healthcare providers. A Toronto hospital will now see if they can boost a patient's recovery after surgery.
In a partnership between McGill University Health Center's Steinberg-Bernstein Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery and SeamlessMD, patients are given a tablet after surgery with education, recovery planning and daily self-assessment functions. The functions, contained in a SeamlessMD cloud-based app, follow the company's Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) guidelines, which the hospital has been using since 2006.
The idea, hospital officials say, is to involve the patients in their post-operative recovery, thus improving patient engagement, reducing daily charting and auditing by staff and giving providers real-time access to patient information.
"Currently, the ERAS protocol and audit tool is resource-intensive and requires additional personnel," Liane Feldman, principal investigator for the study, director of the Steinberg-Bernstein Centre for Minimally Invasive Surgery and co-chair of the MUHC’s surgical recovery team, said in a press release. "We also wanted new ways to engage patients in their recovery. We have been looking for an innovative solution to help with this.”
The study, financed by the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons, will focus on whether a patient-facing application via tablet improves patient adherence to the ERAS care plan.
Hospital officials describe the ERAS program as "a patient-centered approach to integrate evidence-based interventions into a coordinated, multidisciplinary care plan encompassing the entire perioperative pathway." ERAS programs, they said, have been shown to "significantly reduce hospital length of stay and patient morbidity for major surgery."
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Hospital-issued tablets target patient education, satisfaction
