Use of a Smartphone Application for Spine Surgery Improves Patient Adherence with Preoperative Instructions and Decreases Last-minute Surgery Cancellations

Background: Smartphone applications (apps) are being increasingly utilized in the health care arena to improve patient care and outcomes. Objective: To further demonstrate the ability of a smartphone app to improve patient compliance with preoperative instructions and to decrease the number of last-minute surgery cancellations. Methods: Patients undergoing spine surgery were prospectively accrued. Smartphone app users were compared to non-app users. Patient adherence with preoperative instructions as well as last-minute surgery cancellations were analyzed. Results: All 85 app users adhered to preoperative instructions according to the acknowledgements sent to the web portal, and there were no cancelled surgeries. Among the 89 non-app users, there were five cancelled surgeries (5.6%). Conclusions: We demonstrate the ability of a smartphone application to improve patient adherence with preoperative instructions and decrease last-minute surgery cancellations.