Now Reading: “Effectiveness of Home Blood Pressure Monitoring, Web Communication, and Pharmacist Care on Hypertension Control: A Randomized Controlled Trial

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Green, Beverly B., Andrea J. Cook, James D. Ralston, Paul A. Fishman, Sheryl L. Catz, James Carlson, et al. “Effectiveness of Home Blood Pressure Monitoring, Web Communication, and Pharmacist Care on Hypertension Control: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” JAMA 299, no. 24 (June 25, 2008): 2857-2867.

Our findings demonstrate the effectiveness of using home blood pressure monitoring combined with pharmacy care over the Web to improve BP control for patients with essential hypertension

This is a significant study in the world of health care and e-health – the first randomized controlled trial to test the use of care management over the Web. It was performed at Group Health Cooperative, using the Web services that I helped implement as part of our electronic health record system.

Looking at the data, it appears that patients with uncontrolled hypertension without access to supportive pharmacists over the Web were much less likely to have their blood pressure controlled compared to patients that did. In other words, patients were not able to achieve as sufficient control through doctor visits alone.

This study further supports the idea that we have a great opportunity to support non-visit-based, participatory health care as a modality to manage chronic illness.

For a health system already paying for physician visits that have less than a 1 out of 2 chance at recording a controlled blood pressure in them, maybe there’s an opportunity to change the way high blood pressure is managed, for example, in California.


Ted Eytan, MD