Electronic health care records, automated blood pressure measurements, and reminders to healthcare professionals for improving blood pressure control in treated patients with hypertension in clinical practice: PHIDIAS randomized study.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the impact of using electronic case report forms (eCRFs), automated blood pressure (BP) measurements, and reminders to healthcare professionals for improving BP control in treated patients with hypertension in clinical practice.

METHODS

Primary care and hospital outpatient clinics were randomized to assess consecutive treated patients with hypertension at baseline and after 8-12 weeks using a standard eCRF (control) or an upgraded version with automated reminders to healthcare professionals for their patients with uncontrolled hypertension (active). At each visit, triplicate office BP measurements (Microlife BPA3 PC) were automatically uploaded to a cloud platform. Physicians were encouraged to follow the European Society of Hypertension guidelines.

RESULTS

The analysis included 1344 patients (55% men, mean age 65.2 ± 11.8 [SD] years, 38%, 39%, 20% on 1, 2, 3 antihypertensive drugs, respectively, 49/51% in active/control arm). The control arm had a slightly higher baseline BP by 2.2 ± 1/0.3 ± 0.6 mmHg (systolic/diastolic, p < 0.05/NS) and lower control rate (33%) than the active arm (38%, p < 0.05). Treatment was intensified in 50/48% of patients with uncontrolled BP in the control/active arm (p = NS). The systolic BP decline tended to be larger in the active arm (by 2.1 mmHg, p = 0.06), with more frequent use of fixed-dose combinations (60/50%, p = 0.02). Hypertension control was considerably improved at follow-up in both arms, especially in the active versus control group (56/47%, p < 0.01). However, almost half of the participants remained uncontrolled in both arms.

CONCLUSION

The eCRFs, automated BP measurements, and reminders to healthcare professionals can help in improving hypertension control. However, physician inertia remains a common and persistent issue requiring more complex interventions.