Vol. 2, Issue 1, Part A (2025)

Day-care (ambulatory) surgery now constitutes a major proportion of elective surgical procedures worldwide, supported by advances in anaesthesia, minimally invasive techniques and enhanced recovery pathways. Despite same-day discharge, many patients experience significant postoperative pain, fatigue, anxiety and functional limitations at home, and often lack timely professional guidance for self-care, wound surveillance and medication adherence. Traditional follow-up is typically limited to a single outpatient visit or patient-initiated contact, which may be insufficient to detect early complications or promote consistent compliance with postoperative instructions. Tele-nursing, defined as nurse-led assessment, education and counselling delivered through information and communication technologies, offers a promising strategy to bridge this gap by providing structured, proactive follow-up after discharge.
This research aims to evaluate the impact of a structured tele-nursing follow-up programme on recovery and compliance among adults undergoing day-care surgeries. In a randomized controlled design, patients are allocated either to standard post-discharge care or to an intervention comprising scheduled tele-nursing contacts via telephone and secure messaging on postoperative days 1, 3, 7 and 14. Each contact includes symptom and pain assessment, wound and activity review, reinforcement of medication and exercise regimens, and clarification of patient concerns, using a standardized tele-nursing protocol. Primary outcomes include global postoperative recovery measured by a validated recovery scale and self-reported symptom burden at two weeks. Secondary outcomes include adherence to prescribed medications and exercises, unplanned healthcare utilization (emergency visits, unscheduled consultations and readmissions), and patient satisfaction with postoperative care.
We hypothesize that patients receiving tele-nursing follow-up will show improved recovery scores, lower symptom burden, higher adherence to treatment and fewer unplanned healthcare contacts than those receiving standard care. If effective, tele-nursing follow-up could be integrated into routine day-care surgical pathways as a scalable, nurse-led model that supports safe early discharge while maintaining high standards of postoperative surveillance, patient engagement and self-management. The findings have implications for perioperative service design, nursing workload allocation and digital health policy in ambulatory surgery settings.