Assessing technologies for post discharge follow-up of orthopedic surgery

This study examines several developing technological alternatives, including computer vision, lab-on-chip blood monitors, and integrated servomotors to meet the needs of post-surgical patient follow-up. Multiple health care provider experts were surveyed using pairwise comparison in a hierarchical decision making model to determine their preferred criteria for addressing these tasks, revealing a preference for quality and protection at the expense of speed. Cost and ease of use were perceived as smaller factors with no strong differences noted between patient and provider effort. The high tech alternatives did not always outrank the current low tech state of the art, particularly for x-ray analysis, although integrated servomotors and lab-on-chip blood monitoring show promise for future development.