Author in the Room: Effectiveness of Home Blood Pressure Monitoring Web Communication and Pharmacist Care on Hypertension

​August 2008 Author in the Room^® Teleconference

 

Author: Beverly Beth Green, MD, MPH

 

Article: "Effectiveness of Home Blood Pressure Monitoring, Web Communication, and Pharmacist Care on Hypertension Control: The e-BP Randomized Controlled Trial"

 

Summary Points:

• If blood pressure (BP) control could be improved, many deaths from cardiovascular and renal disease could be prevented. 
• The Chronic Care Model was used to design an intervention that empowered patients to be more involved in their own care using home BP monitoring, a patient shared electronic medical record, and Web-based pharmacist assistance.
• The group of patients that received BP monitors and training to use an existing patient website (with encouragement to send their BP numbers to their physician) had a modest decrease in systolic blood pressure, but BP control did not significantly improve. The group that received BP monitors, web training, and web-based pharmacy assistance had greater decreases in BP and were almost two times as likely to have controlled BP.