Role of mobile health on patient enrollment for cleft lip‐palate surgery: A comparative study using SMS blast text messaging in zimbabwe

Background Patients' lack of awareness of available services is a significant barrier to delivering surgical care in resource‐limited settings. Short message service (SMS) text messaging is a potential means to disseminate this information in resource‐limited settings, where rates of mobile pho...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Laryngoscope investigative otolaryngology 2019-08, Vol.4 (4), p.383-386
Main Authors: Gadkaree, Shekhar K., Tollefson, Travis T., Fuller, Jennifer C., Muchemwa, Faith C., Gonga, Aleck, Shaye, David A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cellular telephones
cleft lip and palate
Facial Plastics and Reconstructive Surgery
Global health
global surgery
Information dissemination
mhealth
mobile health
Service introduction
Text messaging
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Summary:Background Patients' lack of awareness of available services is a significant barrier to delivering surgical care in resource‐limited settings. Short message service (SMS) text messaging is a potential means to disseminate this information in resource‐limited settings, where rates of mobile phone usage are high. Methods A blast SMS text informing local populations of upcoming cleft lip‐palate (CLP) surgical services was distributed to 25% of the subscriber base 1 week prior to arrival of a (CLP) surgical team in Zimbabwe. A retrospective cohort analysis comparing characteristics of patients presenting to the CLP clinic in the year prior to (2016) and 2 years following (2017–2018) the implementation of the blast SMS text messaging system is performed to assess its impact. Results Patients presenting to a single Zimbabwean CLP surgical program in the years with SMS messaging notifications were significantly more likely (52 [64%] vs. 5 [17%], P 
ISSN:2378-8038
2378-8038
DOI:10.1002/lio2.287