A telemonitoring program involving pharmacists and people with high blood pressure has been successful in helping patients reduce their blood pressure levels.

Until it did not.

This study showed that patients achieved lower blood pressure levels after six and 12 months. The goal was to improve the patient's experience after the completion of the program, in which they checked their blood pressure at least six times per week.

Five years after the pharmacist consultation, their blood pressure levels returned to the same level of comparison in the clinical study of patients in the study, according to the study results, published in the JAMA Network Open.

Dr. Karen Margolis, a leading author of the study and executive director of research at the Medical Council of Canada. HealthPartners Institute.

"When you're looking at your numbers, and you have a therapeutic relationship, I think it's easier to get the dime and reach a decision about what to do," she said.

The research still validated the telemonitoring approach, she said. The first results of the project were published in 2013. They showed that after six months, patients in the telemonitoring group had an average of 10 points lower than the average levels of the comparison group.

That's significant, because high blood pressure, or high blood pressure, can lead to heart attacks, strokes and even dementia. And hypertension is a rapidly growing problem that is tied to the nation's growing obesity rate.

Minnesota has one of the highest rates of high blood pressure.

HealthPartners selected the telemonitoring approach when it started the study in 2008 – when participants had to have modems to submit blood pressure scores via computers. New wireless technology simplifies the process.

Inspired by the early HealthPartners results, a New Orleans hospital-clinics network known as the Ochsner Health System created a system of hypertension patients to use iPhones to automatically submit to their electronic medical records. The readings, along with other patient information in the system, determine when pharmacists or life coaches need to contact the patients.

Dr. Richard Milani, a cardiologist in charge of Ochsner 's digital medicine program. An improved score "does not mean it's going to be fixed in perpetuity. That's folly, "he said.

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Margolis said HealthPartners is learning from the success at Ochsner. Her research proved that the benefits of this program can not be avoided, but she said that it would be a good idea to be patient and healthy. Her follow-up studies are targeting that question.

Single blood-pressure tests are not always reliable, she said. High scores are sometimes dismissed by doctors on the theory that patients have been under stress because of their appointments.

Allina Health doctors in Edina recently tested the use of blood pressure monitoring systems on 3,217 patients, who wore them for 24 hours and had their readings taken every 30 minutes. In a 2017 study, the authors reported that this "ambulatory" monitoring resulted in the reclassification of high blood pressure of 43 percent of patients.

More frequent monitoring and support is needed, because Margolis said. "That's what it takes. I would not say constant adjustments [are needed], but you have to tinker. "