NEW YORK (Reuters
Health) - Advice and medications delivered via the Internet, along with
home blood pressure (BP) monitoring, lets people with high blood
pressure get their condition under control, researchers have reported in
this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Beverly B. Green, at the University of Washington in Seattle,
and colleagues 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," Green told Reuters Health.
The clinical trial included 778 patients with uncontrolled high
blood pressure and Internet access. They 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.
The Web services permitted patients to email their doctors, refill
prescriptions, request appointments, get test results, and look up
health information.
The pharmacists in the study were allowed to prescribe medications
and they managed the patients' blood pressure using email communication
to adjust medications until the target blood pressure was reached.
After 12 months, about one-third of the patients in the first two
groups achieved a normal blood pressure. However, with the
Internet-based pharmacist care, more than half the patients got their
blood pressure down to normal.
"Web communication (e-mail and secure messaging) improves health
care because it is always available (24/7), 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," Green
pointed out.
"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."
In future research, she and her associates plan to apply their strategy to other chronic conditions, such as diabetes.
SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, June 25, 2008.
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