The Value of an e-Health Platform in Bariatric Surgery: A Retrospective Study on the Impact on Weight Loss

Background: In this time, where health care is getting more digitalized, opportunities open up to provide patients with additional information using e-Health. An e-Health platform was developed to increase knowledge about obesity in general, bariatric procedures, and follow-up program to achieve more weight loss. It was hypothesized that a higher e-Health usage, defined as page views per patient, leads to a higher percentage total weight loss (%TWL) at 2 years postoperatively.

Materials and Methods: Accounts with available follow-up data between January 2015 and April 2018 were retrospectively reviewed. Three groups were formed based on number of page views.

Results: In total, 1,098 subjects were analyzed. On average, a patient connected 12 times with an average of 51-page views per patient. At 1 year postoperatively, the %TWL was 30.7 versus 30.9 versus 31.9 (p = 0.126), and at 2 years 29.4 versus 29.8 versus 30.5 (p = 0.350) in low-active, medium-active, and high-active group, respectively. Analysis whether patients accessed the preoperative content did not show significant differences. However, patients who accessed content after surgery lost more weight than those who did not, being 30.1%TWL versus 31.7%TWL at 1 year (p = 0.006) and 28.9%TWL versus 30.4%TWL at 2 years postoperatively (p = 0.034). Pre- and postoperative quality of life did not differ between groups.

Conclusion: e-Health might be a beneficial tool for weight reduction after bariatric surgery. The current platform reached a large portion of patients. Patients accessing postoperative content lost more weight at 1 and 2 years postoperatively than those who did not. Quality of life was comparable.