A Mobile App With Multimodality Prehabilitation Programs for Patients Awaiting Elective Surgery: Development and Usability Study.

Abstract

Background: Complying with a prehabilitation program is difficult for patients who will undergo surgery, owing to transportation challenges and a limited intervention time window. Mobile health (mHealth) using smartphone apps has the potential to remove barriers and improve the effectiveness of prehabilitation.

Objective: This study aimed to develop a mobile app as a tool for facilitating a multidisciplinary prehabilitation protocol involving blood flow restriction training and sport nutrition supplementation.

Methods: The app was developed using "Appy Pie," a noncoding app development platform. The development process included three stages: (1) determination of principles and requirements of the app through prehabilitation research team meetings; (2) app prototype design using the Appy Pie platform; and (3) app evaluation by clinicians and exercise and fitness specialists, technical professionals from Appy Pie, and non-team-member users.

Results: We developed a prototype of the app with the core focus on a multidisciplinary prehabilitation program with accessory features to improve engagement and adherence to the mHealth intervention as well as research-focused features to evaluate the effects of the program on frailty status, health-related quality of life, and anxiety level among patients awaiting elective surgery. Evaluations by research members and random users (n=8) were consistently positive.

Conclusions: This mobile app has great potential for improving and evaluating the effectiveness of the multidisciplinary prehabilitation intervention in the format of mHealth in future.