Substitution of usual perioperative care by e-health & ICT

In the last decade the number of surgeries increased with 30% in the Netherlands. The increase of surgeries leads to rising hospital care costs. To reduce costs, in-hospital perioperative care is increasingly reduced due to one day hospitalisations and transferred to primary care. Guidance & monitoring on recovery and resumption of (work)activities are mostly not provided in secondary and primary care. Studies showed that due to the poor quality of usual perioperative care, return-to-normal-activities/work after surgery is hampered, leading to high productivity loss costs. We hypothesize that considerable health efficiency gains can be achieved by the substitution and optimization of usual perioperative care by means of e-health and ICT. In this trial we will study the (cost)effectiveness of a transmural, perioperative care program for patients undergoing abdominal surgery.

Considerable health efficiency gains can be achieved by the substitution and optimization of usual perioperative care by means of e-health and ICT.

1. Baseline;
2. 1 week;
3. 3 weeks;
3. 6 weeks;
4. 12 weeks;
5. 6 months.

Multidisciplinary peri-operative care program including an
interactive webportal. It aims to improve recovery and
reduce costs by:

-SELFMANAGEMENT & EMPOWERMENT of patients during the
perioperative period by supporting them with personalized
pre- and postoperative recommendations to return to normal
(work) activities. These recommendations are tailor made:
they are based on patient’s own input of normal preoperative
activities and the surgical technique applied (using
algoritms). An accelerometer will be used as an aid for
patients to monitor and give feedback on recovery. Patients
have to wear the accelerometer from the seventh day before
surgery and a number weeks after surgery.

-MONITORING OF POSTOPERATIVE CARE: With the
webportal the patient as well as all involved physicians can
monitor patient’s recovery (bench mark information) and
thus identify recovery problems.

-E-CONSULTATION is offered to patients to ask questions in
case of recovery problems or to substitute standard
postoperative consultation in outpatient clinics.