3 Responses

1. e-Patient Dave

   May 26th, 2008 at 11:33 pm

   1

   Um, I hovered over the “actual title” link and got a nice realistic “Access Denied.” Care to share what it said?

   I too think this is fascinating. My gut says there’s something to be said for peace of mind. Can we quantify (in statistics and $) the benefits of lower blood pressure? I think so, and that should make insurers (and everyone else) run not walk toward this technology.

2. Ted Eytan

   May 27th, 2008 at 9:47 am

   2

   Hey Dave,

   I think the capture service (not affiliated with me) is unable to capture that page. If you click the link you’ll go to PubMed to see the actual study reference.

   With regard to blood pressure - insurers and Medicare are already paying for blood pressure management, with less than satisfactory results - only 35% of patients under control, most of them insured and seeing doctors. This happens to be a condition with not a lot of patient involvement going on, with some great opportunities. The question is more about how the money that is already being spent (in the 55-60 billion dollar range) could be used effectively,

   Ted

3. Alex Sicre

   May 27th, 2008 at 4:37 pm

   3

   From what I read, it seems as if the study wasn’t long enough to see a significant change in HbA1c levels as it takes 6 - 8 months to lower said levels, and the study was only 3 - 6 months long. The 26% drop for hypertensive patients is impressive. Reminders really can make a positive impact.

   We have 1.4M users getting Intelecare reminders for high blood pressure medications and 700K for diabetes - but I am not sure of the co-morbidity between the two groups. Our usage has shown that our reminders (email, text and voice) do help patients increase their medical adherence and improve their conditions across the board for disease states. We just launched a program with Diabetes Sisters, so hopefully we will have some data next year regarding lowering glucose levels.

   Alex