Wound Care Follow-Up From the Emergency Department Using a Mobile Application: A Pilot Study

Many patients presenting to emergency departments (EDs) do not have primary care and risk being lost to follow-up. Technology has been used successfully in surgical populations for wound care follow-up yet this is not well studied in ED populations. We aimed to conduct a pilot study demonstrating “s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of emergency medicine 2019-11, Vol.57 (5), p.629-636
Main Authors: Tolins, Molly L., Hippe, Daniel S., Morse, Sophie C., Evans, Heather L., Lober, William B., Vrablik, Marie C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
emergency medicine
follow-up wound care
health care disparities
smartphone
telemedicine
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Summary:Many patients presenting to emergency departments (EDs) do not have primary care and risk being lost to follow-up. Technology has been used successfully in surgical populations for wound care follow-up yet this is not well studied in ED populations. We aimed to conduct a pilot study demonstrating “smartphone” application-based follow-up after wound care in the ED. We enrolled participants in 2 urban EDs using a smartphone application called Mobile Post-Operative Wound Evaluator (mPOWEr) and defined participation as photographic submission at any time during the study period. We collected demographic data, frequency of use of mPOWEr, number of photographs uploaded, and timing of uploads. We approached patients for study enrollment, and 67 patients (28%) were not enrolled because they had no access to a smartphone. Seventy-one patients (30%) declined to enroll, leaving 100 (42%) successfully enrolled. Smartphone ownership was more common among patients
ISSN:0736-4679
2352-5029
DOI:10.1016/j.jemermed.2019.07.017