Inpatient Enrollment of Patient Portal App

Not Applicable

Completed

Conditions: Orthopedic Disorder

Interventions: Other: Patient Gateway

Registration Number: NCT03431259

Lead Sponsor: Massachusetts General Hospital

Brief Summary: This study aims to determine if inpatient enrollment into a patient communication app improves clinic follow-up of orthopedic trauma patients and improves survey completion rates after orthopedic trauma.

Detailed Description: Follow-up in trauma is historically poor. As a result, outcomes from trauma are difficult to collect via surveys and are often significantly influenced by selection bias. Patient interaction apps like Patient Gateway are thought to facilitate greater participant involvement and adherence to treatment regimens. The investigators will explore if inpatient enrollment into Patient Gateway would improve clinic follow-up rates. Increasing follow-up rates could improve the quality of care delivered.

In addition, self-administered survey questionnaires are an important data collection tool in clinical practice, public health research and epidemiology. However, survey completion rates are typically poor in orthopaedic trauma.

With the evaluation of modern technology, electronic applications are being increasingly used in both hospital and personal settings. In outpatient clinics, questionnaires to measure outcomes and monitor quality of care are administered by staff members using hospital owned tablet devices. Recently, applications to complete these surveys on personal devices have been developed.

In a recent Cochrane review on the comparison of self-administered survey questionnaire responses collected using mobile apps versus other methods it was concluded that there are no data available on response rates. The investigators will attempt to address this question.

All Patient Gateway naïve patients aged 18 years or older able to consent for themselves and admitted to the hospital for an orthopedic condition with the need for outpatient follow-up will be invited to participate in this study. Exclusion criteria will be patients unable to consent for themselves, inability to communicate in English, and no possession of a smartphone.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: COMPLETED

Sex: All

Target Recruitment: 232

Inclusion Criteria

admitted to the hospital for an orthopedic condition with the need for outpatient follow-up
able to consent for themselves

Exclusion Criteria

unable to consent for themselves
inability to communicate in English
no possession of a smartphone

Study & Design

Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL

Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Enrollment group	Patient Gateway	-

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Use of Any the Patient Gateway Portal at 3 Months	3 months postoperative	The number of patients who used the patient gateway portal for any purpose at 3 months. This will be a count of participants.
Return to Clinic	3 months postoperative	The number of patients enrolled who return to clinic for a followup visit at 3 months postop. It will be a count and proportion of the occurrence of a patient returning to clinic for followup

Secondary Outcome Measures