Bariatric Patient Engagement in a Pre-surgery Virtual Patient Navigation Platform (VPNP)

Background This study analyzed patient engagement with a virtual patient navigation platform (VPNP) designed to help guide bariatric surgery candidates through the complex pre-operative workup for surgery.Methods Data on baseline sociodemographic and medical history was collected on patients enrolled in the bariatric program at a single academic institution between March and May 2021. The System Usability Scale (SUS) survey was administered to assess VPNP usability. Two groups emerged: engaged (ENG; n = 30) who activated their accounts and completed the SUS, and not-engaged (NEG; n = 35) who did not activate their accounts (n = 13) or did not use the app (n = 22) and were therefore ineligible for the SUS survey.Results Analyses demonstrated that only insurance status differed between groups (private insurance: 60% versus 34.3% for ENG versus NEG, respectively; p = 0.038). SUS survey analysis demonstrated high perceived usability (median score = 86.3), corresponding to the 97th percentile of usability. The top three reasons for disengagement included being too busy (22.9%), not being interested (20%), and being unsure about the purpose of the app (20%).Conclusions The VPNP scored in the 97th percentile of usability. However, given a majority of patients did not engage with the app, and engagement was associated with completing pre-surgery requirements faster (unpublished), future work will focus on mitigating identified reasons for patients not engaging.

Automated summary

This study analyzed patient engagement with a virtual patient navigation platform (VPNP) designed to guide bariatric surgery candidates through the pre-operative workup. The study found that the majority of patients did not engage with the app, and non-engagement was associated with lower rates of private insurance. The SUS survey showed high perceived usability of the VPNP, but future work will focus on addressing reasons for non-engagement to improve patient participation.