Manual follow-up of patients does not add value to automated methods in a shoulder arthroplasty registry.

Electronic methods have been implemented to collect patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) to try to increase follow-up rates after surgery. There is a paucity of studies evaluating differences between people who respond to automated electronic methods and those who need manual hard copy mailings. The aims of this study are (1) to evaluate demographic differences between patients who respond to automated data collection vs. manual hard copy mailings and (2) to compare PROM scores with and without patients who respond through mail to determine if there are significant differences. A retrospective review of our institutional shoulder arthroplasty registry from 2016 to 2020 at a high-volume tertiary care hospital was performed. A query was created to evaluate if patients responding at 1 and 2 years completed their forms using automated electronic collection or manual assistance from a research assistant. At 1 year, 975 (86% of respondents) patients responded to automated methods, and 505 (75%) at 2 years. The population had an average age of 67 ± 10.0 years, and 50% were female. Two sample t tests and chi-squared tests were used as appropriate to evaluate differences in demographics and PROMs. Almost no differences were found between age, gender, college education, prior surgery, living situation, and procedure type at 1 and 2 years. A significant difference between groups was found in SANE at 1 (71.6 vs. 78.3; P =.003) and 2 years (70.1 vs. 78.1; P <.001). This may be a result of measurement error, however. No other differences in PROMs scores were found. In addition, there were no differences between the entire sample and automated response alone, suggesting no additional effect of manual reminders. The addition of manual reminders requires additional costs and may be an unnecessary expense if both methods capture the same type of patients without an impact on outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]