Patient’s Manage High Blood Pressure Over the Internet
Posted on: Wednesday, 25 June 2008, 16:06 CDT
Researchers say Internet advice and medication delivery, along with home blood pressure (BP) monitoring, lets people with high blood pressure get their condition under control.
A team at the University of Washington in Seattle tested whether high blood pressure could be managed over the Internet without the need for visits to a doctor.
"Our demographic was middle-aged, working people for whom Web-based care is particularly convenient, particularly for reporting BP numbers and simple or structured communications,” said Dr. Beverly B. Green, the leader of the study.
A group of 778 patients with uncontrolled high blood pressure and Internet access were involved in the clinical trial. The patients were randomly assigned to usual care, or to home BP monitoring and Web services training, or to home monitoring, Web services training, and management by a pharmacist delivered through Internet communications.
Patients were to email their doctors, refill prescriptions, request appointments, get test results, and look up health information, all over the internet.
Pharmacists prescribed medications and they managed the patients' blood pressure using email communication to adjust medications until the target blood pressure was reached.
About one-third of the patients in the first two groups achieved a normal blood pressure after 12 months. However, with the Internet-based pharmacist care, more than half the patients got their blood pressure down to normal.
Green said web communication (e-mail and secure messaging) improves health care because it is always available (24/7).
“It allows people to respond at a time that is convenient to them, and often in a much briefer way than over the telephone or certainly during an in-person visit."
"We believe that greater use of electronic medical records, Web communications, and empowering patients to take a greater role in their care will lead to improved health outcomes and will decrease health care costs," she added. "More efforts need to be taken to make these services available to all."
Green and her associates plan to apply their strategy to other chronic conditions, such as diabetes.
The report was published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.
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On the Net:
Journal of the American Medical Association
Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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