NEW YORK (ReutersHealth) – Advice and medications delivered via the Internet, along withhome blood pressure (BP) monitoring, lets people with high bloodpressure get their condition under control, researchers have reported inthis 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 overthe Internet without the need for visits to a doctor.
"Our demographic was middle-aged, working people for whom Web-basedcare is particularly convenient, particularly for reporting BP numbersand simple or structured communications," Green told Reuters Health.
The clinical trial included 778 patients with uncontrolled highblood pressure and Internet access. They were randomly assigned tousual care, or to home BP monitoring and Web services training, or tohome monitoring, Web services training, and management by a pharmacistdelivered through Internet communications.
The Web services permitted patients to email their doctors, refillprescriptions, request appointments, get test results, and look uphealth information.
The pharmacists in the study were allowed to prescribe medicationsand they managed the patients’ blood pressure using email communicationto adjust medications until the target blood pressure was reached.
After 12 months, about one-third of the patients in the first twogroups achieved a normal blood pressure. However, with theInternet-based pharmacist care, more than half the patients got theirblood pressure down to normal.
"Web communication (e-mail and secure messaging) improves healthcare because it is always available (24/7), allows people to respond ata time that is convenient to them, and often in a much briefer way thanover the telephone or certainly during an in-person visit," Greenpointed out.
"We believe that greater use of electronic medical records, Webcommunications, and empowering patients to take a greater role in theircare will lead to improved health outcomes and will decrease healthcare costs," she added. "More efforts need to be taken to make theseservices 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.
? Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved
Feeling stuck in self-doubt?
Stop trying to fix yourself and start embracing who you are. Join the free 7-day self-discovery challenge and learn how to transform negative emotions into personal growth.
