Patient Engagement Platforms in Fast Track Surgery: Streamline the Process, Reduce Unnecessary Costs and Improve Patient Outcomes

As comes up repeatedly through this book, Fast Track Surgery is a system that involves incremental improvements at every step of the patient journey, improving the patient experience, maximizing outcomes, and minimizing complications [1]. Therefore, it is a natural evolution of pathway optimization to incorporate digital solutions. New digital technologies are being developed to achieve treatment goals and enhance the perioperative guidance process’s efficacy [2]. An excellent example of these technologies, both from a patient and clinician perspective, are the patient engagement platforms (PEPs). At first sight, one might wonder what an app could do to help patients along their journey and what’s in it for the clinician? Many different types of supportive apps and platforms could support the treatment process [3].