Improving smartphone follow-up after patient discharge from annual short-term head and neck missions in Ethiopia

Summary A lack of reliable, long-term patient follow-up data after discharge from short-term surgical missions to low-income and middle-income countries remains a key issue in global humanitarian work. Project Harar is a non-governmental organisation that works in close association with surgeons from the Yekatit 12 Medical College, Addis Ababa, to treat children and adults with complex facial disfigurement in Ethiopia on an annual head and neck and facial reconstructive mission. Following a successful pilot study employing charity field workers and smart phones to follow-up patients in 2018 and 2019, Project Harar now uses patients’ own smartphones to achieve follow-up remotely, without the need for field workers in the majority of cases. Using patient smartphones, triage safety questions and post-operative photographs can be relayed directly to the charity post-operatively. Using this follow-up model, the majority of patients from the 2020 complex reconstructive mission were successfully followed-up. We present data in support of our new method of remote triage and follow-up, and detail a comprehensive algorithm for remote follow-up using patients’ own smartphones after discharge from a short-term reconstructive missions in Ethiopia. We hope this work will be beneficial for similar organisations operating in resource-limited settings around the world facing challenges in reliable patient follow-up.