Table 3 Study activities

1. Network Site Selection

We anticipate that all Network practitioners stratified by state, urban/rural, and practice size, will be eligible to participate. We will work with the Network coordinators to assure all sites are informed of the study protocol and the opportunity to participate.

2. Practitioner Recruitment and training

The Network site coordinators will use established protocols to recruit practitioners. The study team will work with the coordinators and the Network Communications Director to assure the dissemination of the study opportunity. The study team will provide the coordinators with all online training materials. Coordinators may decide to add an in-person training component. Study personnel will be available remotely via video conference/phone calls to support all training efforts.

3. Patient screening and enrollment

Each participating office will decide if practitioners or office staff will screen/enroll patients in the study. The office staff who enroll patients will need to have successfully completed appropriate training. Each participating office will maintain a log of screened and enrolled subjects. On a weekly basis, office staff will record their summary screening/enrollment information in the electronic data capture (EDC) system.

Practitioners will enroll patients via a consecutive process that best suits their practice situation, i.e., they will approach any patient who may meet the inclusion criteria during the days and/or times when the office is participating in research activities.

4. FollowApp.Care platform activation

Enrolled practitioners will individually be able to request their FollowApp.Care notification preferences, for example, they can choose to receive notifications by email or text. Notifications will be sent to practitioners based on predefined thresholds defined in the manual of procedures (MOP).

5. Patient evaluation (Usability questionnaire)

Patients will complete a Usability survey (SUS) on day 23 using the FollowApp.Care platform.

6. Practitioner evaluation (debriefing/interview session and UTAUT questionnaire)

Once the patient component of the study has been concluded, we will administer the UTAUT Questionnaire to all participating practitioners to assess their perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of FollowApp.Care as predictors of their usage behavior. Thereafter, we will conduct virtual debriefing/interviews with up to 45 purposefully selected practitioners to qualitatively evaluate their experiences with using FollowApp.Care for managing their patients’ post-op pain. These debriefing/interview discussions will be audiotaped and transcribed for analysis.