Blood pressure outcomes at 12 months in primary care patients prescribed remote physiological monitoring for hypertension: a prospective cohort study

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) for hypertension enables automatic transmission of blood pressure (BP) and pulse into the electronic health record (EHR), but its effectiveness in primary care is unknown. This pragmatic matched cohort study using EHR data compared BP outcomes between individuals prescribed RPM and temporally-matched controls from six primary care practices. We retrospectively created a cohort of 288 Medicare-enrolled patients prescribed BP RPM (cases) and 1152 propensity score-matched controls (1:4). Matching was based on age, sex, systolic blood pressure (SBP), marital status, and other characteristics. Outcomes at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months were: controlling high BP (most recent BP < 140/90 mm Hg), antihypertensive medication intensification, and most recent SBP assessed using: all measurements, and office measurements only. At baseline, RPM-prescribed patients and controls had similar ages and systolic BP. BP control diverged at 3 months (RPM: 72.2%, control: 51%, p < 0.001). This difference persisted but decreased over follow-up. After 12 months, the RPM-prescribed cohort had greater BP control (RPM: 71.5%, control: 58.1%, p < 0.001) and lower SBP (132.3 versus 136.5 mm Hg, p = 0.003) using all measurements, but they did not differ using only office measurements (12 month BP control: 60.8% versus 58.1%, p = 0.44; SBP: 135.9 versus 136.5 mm Hg, p = 0.91). At 12 months, the most recent BP measurements were more current for RPM-prescribed patients (median [IQR] 8 [0-109] versus 134 [56-239] days). Net increases in antihypertensive medications by 12 months were similar. Implementation of RPM in primary care could inform hypertension management strategies and increase hypertension control. Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT05562921.

Prospective Cohort Study of Remote Patient Monitoring with and without Care Coordination for Hypertension in Primary Care

BACKGROUND

Out-of-office blood pressure (BP) measurements contribute valuable information for guiding clinical management of hypertension. Measurements from home devices can be directly transmitted to patients' electronic health record for use in remote monitoring programs.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to compare in primary care practice care coordinator-assisted implementation of remote patient monitoring (RPM) for hypertension to RPM implementation alone and to usual care.

METHODS

This was a pragmatic observational cohort study. Patients aged 65 to 85 years with Medicare insurance from two populations were included: those with uncontrolled hypertension and a general hypertension group seeing primary care physicians (PCPs) within one health system. Exposures were clinic-level availability of RPM plus care coordination, RPM alone, or usual care. At two clinics (13 PCPs), nurse care coordinators with PCP approval offered RPM to patients with uncontrolled office BP and assisted with initiation. At two clinics (39 PCPs), RPM was at PCPs' discretion. Twenty clinics continued usual care. Main measures were controlling high BP (<140/90 mm Hg), last office systolic blood pressure (SBP), and proportion with antihypertensive medication intensification.

RESULTS

Among the Medicare cohorts with uncontrolled hypertension, 16.7% (39/234) of patients from the care coordination clinics were prescribed RPM versus <1% (4/600) at noncare coordination sites. RPM-enrolled care coordination group patients had higher baseline SBP than the noncare coordination group (148.8 vs. 140.0 mm Hg). After 6 months, in the uncontrolled hypertension cohorts the prevalences of controlling high BP were 32.5% (RPM with care coordination), 30.7 % (RPM alone), and 27.1% (usual care); multivariable adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence interval) were 1.63 (1.12-2.39; p = 0.011) and 1.29 (0.98-1.69; p = 0.068) compared with usual care, respectively.

CONCLUSION

Care coordination facilitated RPM enrollment among poorly controlled hypertension patients and may improve hypertension control in primary care among Medicare patients.

Abstract P382: Blood Pressure Outcomes After 12 Months in Primary Care: A Prospective Cohort Study in Electronic Health Records Using Propensity Score Matching for Remote Patient Monitoring for Hypertension

Introduction: In primary care (PC) settings, more hands-on hypertension management may be enabled by remote patient monitoring (RPM) for blood pressure (BP), leading to greater BP control over time

Hypothesis: Individuals prescribed RPM will have better BP control (BP <140/90 mmHg) and lower office SBP after 12 months, compared with temporally-matched controls.

Methods: We conducted a pragmatic matched cohort study in Medicare-enrolled patients with Hypertension at six PC practices, 288 of whom participated in pilot studies of a Omron VitalSight TM RPM system that enabled automatic transmission of BP and pulse into the electronic health record (EHR). We used 1:4 propensity score matching to identify 1152 contemporary matches for these patients from the same PC practices, based on age, sex, systolic BP (SBP), marital status, and several other clinical and healthcare visit characteristics. Outcomes after 12 months included controlling high blood pressure (most recent BP <140/90 mm Hg), and most recent systolic BP and diastolic BP, assessed 1) using PC office measurements only and 2) incorporating RPM measurements.

Results: The matched cohort of 1152 patients was, on average, 74 (SD 8) years old, 71% female, and 71% non-Hispanic white. Average baseline systolic BP (SD) was similar between groups: 142.7 (19.5) and 141.2 (18.7) mm Hg in RPM-prescribed patients and controls, respectively (Table). Compared with matched controls, after 12 months the RPM-prescribed cohort had greater BP control (72.6% versus 65.6%) and lower systolic BP (132.3 versus 136.6 mm Hg) when including RPM measurements. However, these metrics were similar when using PC office measurements only.

Conclusions: Greater BP control and lower SBP were observed after 12 months in RPM-prescribed patients when considering RPM measurements. Further studies will assess the contributions of adherence to RPM use to observed declines in BP. The EHR can be used to prospectively construct and conduct cohort studies.

Design of Behavioral Economic Applications to Geriatrics Leveraging Electronic Health Records (BEAGLE): A pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND

Overtesting and treatment of older patients is common and may lead to harms. The Choosing Wisely campaign has provided recommendations to reduce overtesting and overtreatment of older adults. Behavioral economics-informed interventions embedded within the electronic health record (EHR) have been shown to reduce overuse in several areas. Our objective is to conduct a parallel arm, pragmatic cluster-randomized trial to evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral-economics-informed clinical decision support (CDS) interventions previously piloted in primary care clinics and designed to reduce overtesting and overtreatment in older adults.

METHODS/DESIGN

This trial has two parallel arms: clinician education alone vs. clinician education plus behavioral-economics-informed CDS. There are three co-primary outcomes for this trial: (1) prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening in older men, (2) urine testing for non-specific reasons in older women, and (3) overtreatment of diabetes in older adults. All eligible primary care clinics from a large regional health system were randomized using a modified constrained randomization process and their attributed clinicians were included. Clinicians were recruited to complete a survey and educational module. We randomized 60 primary care clinics with 374 primary care clinicians and achieved adequate balance between the study arms for prespecified constrained variables. Baseline annual overuse rates for the three co-primary outcomes were 25%, 23%, and 17% for the PSA, urine, and diabetes measures, respectively.

DISCUSSION

This trial is evaluating behavioral-economics-informed EHR-embedded interventions to reduce overuse of specific tests and treatments for older adults. The study will evaluate the effectiveness and safety of these interventions.