Role of mobile health on patient enrollment for cleft lip‐palate surgery: A comparative study using SMS blast text messaging in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Background Patients' lack of awareness of available services is a significant barrier to delivering surgical care in resource‐limited settings. Short message service (SMS) text messaging is a potential means to disseminate this information in resource‐limited settings, where rates of mobile phone usage are high. Methods A blast SMS text informing local populations of upcoming cleft lip‐palate (CLP) surgical services was distributed to 25% of the subscriber base 1 week prior to arrival of a (CLP) surgical team in Zimbabwe. A retrospective cohort analysis comparing characteristics of patients presenting to the CLP clinic in the year prior to (2016) and 2 years following (2017–2018) the implementation of the blast SMS text messaging system is performed to assess its impact. Results Patients presenting to a single Zimbabwean CLP surgical program in the years with SMS messaging notifications were significantly more likely (52 [64%] vs. 5 [17%], P < .001) to have been informed of surgical services through their mobile phones. The average distance traveled per patient was not significantly different prior to implementation of mass text messaging (180.4 km [SD114.8] vs. 167.4 km [SD105.9], P = .580). The average patient age was significantly higher following the implementation of mass text messaging (7.4 [SD8.7] vs. 3.0 [SD2.8] years, P = .010). Conclusions SMS messaging is an effective method of informing patients of CLP surgical services in resource‐limited settings. After implementation of SMS text notifications, surgical patients were of increased age, but showed no difference in distance traveled. Level of Evidence IV

Keywords

• Global health
• cleft lip and palate
• text messaging
• mhealth
• mobile health
• global surgery