Construction and evaluation of a cloud follow-up platform for gynecological chemotherapy patients

Abstract

Background Patient follow-up is an essential part of hospital management. With the advent of the information age, patient follow-up is expected to be replaced by Internet technology. This study constructed a gynecological chemotherapy patient cloud follow-up platform to evaluate its cost-effectiveness and patient feedback effect. Methods A total of 2538 patients were followed up using a cloud follow-up system between January and October 2021. Prior to this, 690 patients were followed up manually over telephonic calls. The patient characteristics, follow-up rate, patient satisfaction, and session duration in the cloud follow-up group and manual follow-up group were compared. In addition, the read rate of health education materials in the cloud follow-up group was analyzed. Results The general information (age, cancer stage, and disease category) and follow-up rate (cloud: 6957/7614, 91.4%; manual: 1869/2070, 90.3%; P = 0.13) did not significantly differ between the two groups. The follow-up satisfaction of the cloud follow-up patients was significantly better than that of the manual follow-up group (cloud: 7192/7614, 94.5%; manual: 1532/2070, 74.0%; P༜0.001). The time spent on the follow-up of 100 patients in the cloud follow-up group was approximately 1.2 hours compared to 10.5 hours in the manual follow-up group. The read rate of health education materials in the cloud follow-up group was 72.9%. Conclusions The follow-up effect of the cloud follow-up group was not inferior to that of the manual follow-up group, and the cloud follow-up group was more in line with the prevention and control requirements of the post-epidemic era. Cloud follow-up can save medical resources, improve cost-effectiveness, provide sufficient health education resources for patients, and improve patient satisfaction.