Effectiveness of a Mobile Health System on Compliance With 2-Year Living Kidney Donor Follow-Up in the United States.

BACKGROUND

Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) policy requires 2 years of follow-up for living kidney donors (LKDs); however, many transplant hospitals struggle to meet this requirement. We developed and tested a mobile health (mHealth) system for LKD follow-up in a pilot randomized-controlled trial (RCT).

METHODS

LKDs were randomly assigned to either the intervention (mHealth + standard of care) or control arm (standard of care). We assessed OPTN policy-defined completeness and timeliness of 6-month, 1-year, and 2-year follow-ups. Four hundred LKDs were enrolled in the study (June 2018 to February 2021).

RESULTS

At 6-month follow-up, a higher proportion of the intervention arm participants completed composite visits (97.5% vs. 91.5%, p = 0.01). Both arms had similar compliance rates at 1- and 2-year follow-up (92.0% vs. 89.5%, p = 0.49, and 66.5% vs. 65.0%, p = 0.83). Intervention arm participants completed 6-month follow-up 11 days earlier than their counterparts (p = 0.009).

CONCLUSION

mHealth technologies improved 6-month follow-up, but did not impact 1- and 2-year LKD follow-up in this single-center RCT. Other strategies, such as providing services beyond data collection, may be necessary to improve donor engagement and support LDK's long-term follow-up.