Obstetrical Patient Engagement and Data Collection: The Value of Technology in Enhanced Recovery Programs

Enhanced recovery at cesarean section refers to a multimodal and multidisciplinary pathway aimed at accelerating patient recovery. The program’s success requires patient engagement throughout the perioperative period, as well as post-discharge, which is made possible with the help of technology. Our institution’s state of the art patient engagement smartphone application provides on-demand patient education and allows for remote monitoring both pre and postoperatively. Further, the application surveys patients regarding preoperative surgical fear, program compliance, opioid risk, amongst other data points, that are collected to an analytics dashboard, which can be viewed pre- and postoperatively. This application is particularly helpful post-discharge when it is more difficult to have continued patient engagement and program assessment. Thus, we argue that technology is essential to the success of an enhanced recovery program and in future research aimed at studying the comprehensive benefit of these programs on maternal recovery and outcomes.