Effectiveness of a Mobile Health System on Compliance With 2-Year Living Kidney Donor Follow-Up in the United States.
Thomas, A. G., et al.Clinical Transplantation 2026; 39(4): e70139.
Aims
The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of a mobile health (mHealth) tool for improving living kidney donor (LKD) follow-up rates.
Interventions
Participants were randomised to either receive mHealth plus standard of care or standard of care alone.
Participants
400 living kidney donors.
Outcomes
The main outcomes of interest were the rate of complete and timely submission of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) questionnaire and laboratory follow-up data at each required follow-up visit.
Follow-up
2 years
CET Conclusions
This study aimed to test the effectiveness of a mobile health (mHealth) tool that was developed to improve and support LKD follow-up. Although it is not described in the paper how the randomised sequence was generated, the randomised assignments were adequately concealed using sealed envelopes. A total of 400 LKDs were randomised to either standard of care alone (n=200) or to standard of care combined with mHealth system (n=200). Composite visit compliance was observed to be significantly higher in LKDs in the mHealth intervention group at 6 months follow-up but not at 1-year and 2-year follow-up, compared to the control group. Likewise, participants in the mHealth intervention group had significantly higher laboratory compliance at 6 months but not at 1- and 2-years follow-up. The exact reasons for why the intervention does not appear to be effective at 1 and 2 years are not explained in the paper. Based on these findings, the authors concluded that mHealth tools which only focuses on data collection for OPTN policy compliance, does not adequately meet 2-year LKD follow-up goals.
Data analysis
Per protocol analysis
Trial registration
ClinicalTrials.gov - NCT03400085