Are Cardiac Patients Nowadays Ready to Use New Technologies as a Support After Cardiac Surgery?

Objectives: Among patients presenting for cardiovascular surgery, the percentage of elderly is growing constantly. Still, many are already using smartphones, applications and interactive online content. In times of the corona virus spreading, this will become more and more important to address safety and distance regulations. This study analyses what patients value about a postoperative cardiovascular rehabilitation program and if they are willing to use additional devices in a cardiovascular patient population.

Methods: In this prospective observational study, all elective patients presenting for cardiac surgery were included. After completing the cardiovascular rehabilitation program, they were asked to fill a questionnaire via phone call or conventional mail.

Result: A total of 250 patients were included preoperatively; 211 were able and willing to respond postoperatively. Mean age was 67 ± 9 years, 78.1% were male. The questions were answered 20.6 ± 19.3 weeks after the program. Patients participated for 3.2 ± 3.1 weeks and rated it helpful in 78.5%. 62.6% were already using a smartphone for as long as 6.7 ± 4.0 years and an additional 25.3% could imagine using a smartphone in the future. The health applications commonly used were: step counter (22.2%), nutrition applications (5.4%), fitness tracker (4.7%), games (18.1%), brain teaser (19.5%), and other applications (19.5%). 21.8% could imagine using those applications and 30.8% could at least partly imagine to use them. 31.3% fully and 28.1% partly suspected that health applications could have a benefit for their health and 33.6% would be interested to use them as add-on to the rehabilitation program. There were no significant differences regarding which operation the patients went through (CABG, Valve Replacement, combination of both) or gender. Female patients, however, participated shorter in the rehabilitation program (3.0 ± 2.0 vs. 3.3 ± 3.3 weeks, p < 0.001) and had used smartphones over a shorter period of time (4.8 ±3.9 years vs. 7.2 ± 4.0 years, p < 0.001).

Conclusion: A clear majority of our patients undergoing cardiac surgery are using smartphones or other technical devices, can imagine a benefit for their health and is willing to use them for this purpose. Thus, applications to support keeping them mentally and physically active after surgery are much sought after. But these need to be created now meeting the specific requirements of these patients.

No conflict of interest has been declared by the author(s).

Publication History

Article published online:
19 February 2021