"Can You Hear Me Now?": Postoperative Patient-Initiated Communication With Providers

OBJECTIVES: Surgical patients often leave the hospital with many questions and concerns after their surgery and will contact their providers to get answers. The growth of patient-provider communication (PPC) technologies allows for many new opportunities to study postoperative patient-initiated communication. We aimed to characterize a growing body of literature on postoperative patient-initiated communication. STUDY DESIGN: Review. METHODS: A scoping review methodology was used to identify 17 studies analyzing patient-initiated communication in the postoperative period and to characterize key results and areas of investigation in the literature. Patient-initiated communication in the postoperative period was defined as any communication initiated by the patient after discharge. RESULTS: The majority of studies were published between 2014 and 2018 (82.4%). Telephone calls were the most common type of medium investigated (11 studies; 64.7%), followed by secure messaging (2 studies; 11.8%). Patients most commonly initiated contact regarding study results, medications, and wounds. Common areas of investigation included communication timing and sociodemographic associations. CONCLUSIONS: As health systems adopt new technologies for PPC, understanding how and why patients initiate contact with providers postoperatively can inform efforts to strengthen PPC broadly. Moreover, research on sociodemographic variation in communication patterns after surgery can help address communication gaps that patient groups may experience. Future research can build upon this work to improve patient outcomes and increase clinic efficiency.