Home blood pressure telemonitoring in the 21st century (original) (raw)
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The role of telemedicine in hypertension management: focus on blood pressure telemonitoring
Current hypertension reports, 2015
This review aims at updating and critically assessing the role of telemedicine, and in particular, of home blood pressure telemonitoring (HBPT), in the management of the hypertensive patient. Result from several randomized trials suggest that HBPT represents a promising tool for improving blood pressure (BP) control of hypertensive patients, in particular, those at high risk. Most studies documented a significant BP reduction with regular HBPT compared to usual care. HBPT interventions showed a very high degree of acceptance by patients, helped improving the patients' quality of life, and were associated with lower medical costs than standard care, even though such costs were offset by those of the technology, thus reducing the overall cost-effectiveness of HBPT. The high heterogeneity of the technologies, study designs, and type of patients in the various studies suggest that further well-designed, large cohort, prospective studies are needed to identify key elements of HBPT ap...
Electronic processes and communication technologies are more and more often employed to provide healthcare services to caregivers and their patients. Such solutions are currently referred as e-health, the most popular and widely distributed being those based on telemedicine and mobile health (m-health). A specific application of telemedicine for hypertension management is blood pressure telemonitoring (BPT), which allows remote data transmission of BP and additional information on patients’ health status from their living site or from a community setting to the doctor’s office or the hospital. Several randomized studies have documented a significant BP reduction with regular BPT compared to usual care, particularly in high risk hypertensive patients. Additional benefits are observed when BPT is offered under the supervision of a team of healthcare professionals, including a community pharmacist. BPT may also be provided in the context of m-health solutions, which commonly include wireless diagnostic and clinical decision support tools. M-health has the potential to promote patient’s self-management, as a complement to the doctor’s intervention, and encourage greater participation in medical decision making. Current statistics show that half of smartphone owners gather health information through their phone and 19 % use a health app. In case of hypertensive patients the most popular apps are those with tracking function, including BPT. Thus, e-health, and in particular BPT and m-health, are progressively gaining a key role in the management of hypertensive patients, having the potential to improve the quality of the delivered care and to more effectively prevent cardiovascular consequences of high BP.
American Journal of Hypertension, 2011
Home blood pressure telemonitoring figures among the possible solutions that could help improve blood pressure control of hypertensive patients. To summarize the effectiveness of home blood pressure telemonitoring on blood pressure control from randomized, controlled studies. Electronic databases were searched for publications in English, reporting on randomized trials of home blood pressure telemonitoring vs. usual care. Outcome measures were office or ambulatory blood pressure changes, rate of blood pressure control, and number of antihypertensive drugs used by patients. A random effects model was applied. Twelve studies met inclusion criteria. A high level of heterogeneity was found among studies for all the variables explored. Office blood pressure was reduced significantly more in patients randomized to home telemonitoring (systolic: 5.64 (95% confidence interval: 7.92, 3.36) mm Hg; diastolic: 2.78 (3.93, 1.62) mm Hg; 11 comparisons, n = 4,389). The effect on ambulatory blood pressure was smaller than on office blood pressure (systolic: 2.28 (4.32, 0.24); diastolic: 1.38 (3.55, +0.79) mm Hg; 3 comparisons, n = 655). The relative risk of blood pressure normalization (<140/90 mm Hg nondiabetics and <130/80 mm Hg diabetics) in the telemonitoring vs. the usual care group was 1.31 (1.06, 1.62) (5 comparisons, n = 2,432 subjects). Use of telemonitoring was associated with a significantly increased use of antihypertensive medications (+0.22 (+0.02, +0.43), 5 comparisons, n = 1,991). Home blood pressure telemonitoring may represent a useful tool to improve blood pressure control. However, heterogeneity of published studies suggests that well designed, large-scale, randomized, controlled studies are still needed to demonstrate the clinical usefulness of this technique.
BMC medical informatics and decision making, 2014
Control of blood pressure is frequently inadequate in spite of availability of several classes of well tolerated and effective antihypertensive drugs. Several factors, including the use of suboptimal doses of drugs, inadequate or ineffective treatments and poor drug compliance may be the reason for this phenomenon. The aim of the current non- randomized study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a Home-Based Telemedicine service in patients with uncontrolled hypertension. 74 patients were enrolled in a Home Based Telemedicine group and 94 patients in the Usual Care group. At baseline and at the end of the study, patients in both groups were seen in a cardiology office. Patients in Home Based Telemedicine group additionally were followed by a physician-nurse, through scheduled and unscheduled telephone appointments. These patients also received a blood pressure measuring device that could transmit the readings to a central data monitor via secure data connection. During the study per...
Journal of the American Society of Hypertension, 2016
This paper reports subgroup analysis of a successful cluster-randomized trial to identify attributes of hypertensive patients who benefited more or less from an intervention combining BP telemonitoring and pharmacist management. The endpoint was BP <140/90 mm Hg at six-month follow-up. Fourteen baseline patient characteristics were selected a-priori as subgroup variables. Among the 351 trial participants, 44% were female, 84% non-Hispanic white, mean age was 60.9 years, and mean BP was 149/86 mm Hg. The overall adjusted odds ratio for BP control in the intervention vs. usual care group was 3.64 (p<0.001). The effect of the intervention was significantly larger in patients who were younger (interaction p= 0.02), did not have diabetes (p=0.005), had high baseline DBP (p=0.02), added salt less than daily in food preparation (p=0.007), and took 0-2 (rather than 3-6) antihypertensive medication classes at baseline (p=0.02). These findings may help prioritize patients for whom the intervention is most effective.