*Purpose: Living kidney donation (LKD) offers the best long-term outcomes for patients undergoing kidney transplantation. However, LKD has been declining in the U.S. in recent years, and there is evidence to suggest that this is partly due to the inconvenience of the surgery and follow-up care needed. New web-based technology has allowed the development of virtual clinic visits between patients and health care providers, without the patient having to physically travel to their appointments. This technology has been applied in many areas of medicine, but to our knowledge, there are no studies that specifically asses the use of this technology in LKD. We began offering virtual postoperative follow-up via WebEx for LKD as of January 2018. The aim of this analysis was to determine patient reported experiences with this quality improvement endeavor, assessing whether WebEx follow-up appointments would provide convenient follow-up for donors by eliminating the time and expense of travel while still delivering effective care.

*Methods: Seventy-seven LK donors were administered a survey and respondents were divided into two groups: those who had traditional in-clinic follow-up and those who had virtual WebEx follow-up. A total of 53 patients (69%) responded, 19 of whom (36%) had WebEx follow-up.

*Results: A desire to avoid travel was cited by 84% of WebEx participants as the primary reason they chose virtual follow-up; 89% WebEx participants reported they would choose virtual follow-up again if given the option, compared to 56% of traditional clinic participants (p=0.0120). When asked to rate their overall satisfaction with their follow-up on a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 being very unsatisfied and 5 being very satisfied), 13 of the WebEx participants (68%) rated their overall follow-up experience as a 5 (mean score=4.7), compared to 73% of clinic participants (mean score=4.3, p=0.253). Convenience with appointment follow-up trended towards being rated higher in the WebEx group vs. the Clinic group (4.72±1.26 vs 4.15±0.57, p=0.0683). Patients in the WebEx group traveled further from home to the transplant center, with 63% being more than 200 miles away, as compared to 32% in the control group (Table 1, p=0.024). Our results demonstrate that WebEx follow-up produces similar levels of donor satisfaction with slightly improved convenience ratings in a group of donors that lived significantly further from the transplant center.

*Conclusions: Virtual postoperative follow-up care may be a viable and effective alternative for many patients and has the potential to make the donation process more convenient for LK donors.

« Back to 2020 American Transplant Congress