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MONDAY, Sept. 10, 2018 (HealthDay News) – Home Blood Pressure Monitoring can improve hypertension control and reduce health care costs.
This is the conclusion of a preliminary study including 2,550 adults with uncontrolled hypertension. They all received free home blood pressure monitors, online resources and print resources to track their blood pressure readings and reminders to check their blood pressure.
At the third visit to their doctor, nearly 67% of patients had blood pressure under control. At the sixth visit, the rate was about 60%, reported the study authors.
According to study author Roy Champion, the decline between the third and sixth visits was due to doctors adjusting blood pressure medications based on information from home blood pressure monitoring. He is a clinical grade nurse at Scott and White Health Plan in Temple, Texas.
Patients only had to see their doctors a few times to determine the ideal amount of medication, Champion said.
By the time patients stopped using home monitors, systolic blood pressure (the upper reading) had decreased by an average of 16.9 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure (lower value) by 6.5 mm Hg average, according to the researchers.
They presented the results Saturday in Chicago at a meeting of the American Heart Association on high blood pressure. The study was funded by a grant from the cardiac association.
Over the next six months, almost 80% of the study participants were able to control their blood pressure using the so-called Health Care Information and Data Set Standards. 2018. And 72 percent achieved blood pressure control according to the 2017 guidelines of the American Heart Association / American College of Cardiology.
Both organizations support the use of home blood pressure monitoring for the management of hypertension, the researchers said.
"Even with the strictest guidelines, we have shown that home blood pressure monitoring is essential for controlling hypertensive patients," Champion said in a press release.
Each monitor and accompanying kit costs an average of $ 38.50 and has resulted in substantial savings. Each patient had 1.2 doctor visits per year and the costs of emergency services and drugs were drastically reduced, according to the researchers.
Home monitoring and doctor visits to measure blood pressure can help avoid readings caused by what doctors call "white hypertension," when blood pressure is elevated in a medical setting, but not in daily life. And tandem treatments may also reveal "masked hypertension," when blood pressure is normal in a medical environment but elevated at home.
High blood pressure can lead to serious health threats, including heart attack, heart failure, stroke, and kidney disease.
The results of the study having been presented at a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
The US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute has more hypertension.
SOURCE: American Heart Association, press release, September 8, 2018
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