Background The application of mobile health (mHealth) platforms to monitor recovery in the postdischarge period has increased in recent years. Despite widespread enthusiasm for mHealth, few studies have evaluated the usability and user experience of mHealth in patients with surgical drainage. Objective Our objectives were to (1) develop an image-based smartphone app, SurgCare, for postdrainage monitoring and (2) determine the feasibility and clinical value of the use of SurgCare by patients with drainage. Methods We enrolled 80 patients with biliary or peritoneal drainage in this study. A total of 50 patients were assigned to the SurgCare group, who recorded drainage monitoring data with the smartphone app; and 30 patients who manually recorded the data were assigned to the conventional group. The patients continued to record data until drain removal. The primary aim was to validate feasibility for the user, which was defined as the proportion of patients using each element of the system. Moreover, the secondary aim was to evaluate the association of compliance with SurgCare and the occurrence of unexpected events. Results The average submission duration was 14.98 days, and the overall daily submission rate was 84.2%. The average system usability scale was 83.7 (SD 3.5). This system met the definition of “definitely feasible” in 34 patients, “possibly feasible” in 10 patients, and “not feasible” in 3 patients. We found that the occurrence rates of complications in the SurgCare group and the conventional group were 6% and 26%, respectively, with statistically significant differences P=.03. The rate of unexpected hospital return was lower in the SurgCare group (6%) than in the conventional groups (26%) (P=.03). Conclusions Patients can learn to use a smartphone app for postdischarge drainage monitoring with high levels of user satisfaction. We also identified a high degree of compliance with app-based drainage-recording design features, which is an aspect of mHealth that can improve surgical care.

Background The Trauma and Injury Severity Score (TRISS) is widely used to predict mortality in trauma patients, but its performance metrics have not been analyzed for early vs later deaths. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the impact of time to death on the accuracy of TRISS. Methods Patients from 2013 to 2018 American College of Surgeons Trauma Quality Improvement Program database were included. We compared predicted survival by TRISS using the areas under receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) and calibration curves between different cut-off times and subgroups. We further compared early (≤72 hr) and late (>72 hr) deaths based on mechanisms and severity. Results Among the 1,180,745 patients, the total mortality rate was 6.4%, with 59% early deaths and 41% late deaths. The AUC of TRISS for all patients was .919 (95% CI: .918-.921) for ≤72 hr survival and .845 (95% CI: .843-.848) for >72 hr survival. Significant discrepancies in AUCs between the early and late death groups existed in all cohorts based on blunt/penetrating mechanisms and severity. TRISS predicted well in early survival of penetrating injury but was less reliable in late survival of penetrating injury and all blunt injury. TRISS tended to underestimate survival, particularly for patients with lower probability of survival, with increased discrepancies seen for predicting late deaths. Conclusions The predictive ability of TRISS varies significantly based on the timing of deaths and key injury factors. TRISS may be best utilized in predicting early survival in penetrating injury, but its reliability and accuracy diminish when predicting late deaths for all kinds of injury.

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