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Web Helps Control Blood Pressure

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BY TAMMIE SMITH

MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE

Published: July 2, 2008

RICHMOND, Va. -- Patients who checked their blood pressure at home with a pharmacist monitoring those readings over the Internet achieved better blood-pressure control than patients getting traditional care, research shows.

The new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests another option for helping the roughly one in three adults in the United States with high blood pressure.

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is called the "silent killer" because people can have it and feel fine. But over time, elevated, uncontrolled blood pressure damages the heart and blood vessels, which can lead to heart disease, stroke and kidney failure.

New technology, including electronic medical records and Web-based disease-management programs, are being looked at to improve care and cut health-care costs.

The study compared Web-based care featuring pharmacist management with routine office care and with home monitoring featuring Web site training but no pharmacist oversight.

"Probably the biggest thing is just having people be involved in their own care," said Amy Whitaker, a faculty member at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy.

"There have been other studies looking at pharmacists helping to improve cholesterol levels, blood sugar, asthma. This just follows along with it," said Whitaker.

The federally funded study was done by researchers in Seattle. It enrolled 778 participants, following them for a year.

Only about a third of adults with hypertension have it controlled.

"It can be hard to manage," Whitaker said. "A lot of times people don't feel bad when their blood pressure is high but we start them on medication and they might start to feel bad on medication. Or they don't feel any different and their medication is costing them money."

The researchers said the Web intervention could leave out some groups. Those rejected for the study because they did not have Internet access were more likely to be older and minorities.

A JAMA editorial accompanying the study raised the issue of how to reimburse pharmacists for their time and how physicians who integrated such a model would have to pay a pharmacist and at the same time would see their income drop as patients made fewer office visits.

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