As healthcare organizations develop home health remote patient monitoring programs to help patients with chronic diseases, they will seek to identify the populations most likely to benefit from home monitoring and care management. One of the groups is the patients with hypertension.
According to the data of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hypertension affects about 116 million people (47%) in the United States. About a quarter of these people have their blood pressure under control, while the rest suffer from diseases that increase their risk of heart disease or stroke. In 2019 alone, hypertension was listed as the main or contributing cause of death for nearly 517,000 people, and the annual treatment cost of the US health care system exceeded 130 billion US dollars.
In order to improve clinical outcomes and reduce expensive treatment, healthcare organizations can launch a family health remote patient monitoring program that focuses on patients with a history of hypertension or prehypertension. The latter is defined by blood pressure in the range of 120 to 139 mmHg systolic blood pressure or 80 to 89 mmHg diastolic blood pressure. Healthcare organizations use 4G blood pressure cuff to identify these patients and include them in programs that allow regular monitoring, giving providers the opportunity to intervene more quickly before a controllable situation becomes a health emergency requiring hospitalization.
Because hypertension affects the heart, kidneys, and other organs and causes a wide range of health problems, the active home health remote patient monitoring program provides various opportunities for care providers to improve patient health, thereby reducing medical costs and improving clinical outcomes.
Home health remote patient monitoring strategies can be integrated into almost any primary care service, providing opportunities for care management and coordination. Through hypertension treatment, patients can be guided to accept smoking cessation and weight management plans as well as services to address behavioral health and even sleep management. The strategy is to allow patients to receive resources and care when they need it most, not just when they go to a doctor or clinic.
The home health remote patient monitoring program develops with the technology. Transtek's TeleCuff is a series of RPM device. The TeleCuff can automatically send blood pressure data to the RPM health platform. If there is any abnormal reading, the doctor will contact the user. As for the patient, he/she only needs to connect the power supply and click the button to measure the blood pressure, without downloading the application, pairing the device, and other complicated operations.
As healthcare organizations become increasingly accustomed to using home health remote patient monitoring technology, they will develop their own strategies and best practices to make this service not only a key component of health care but also a key part of health and health care.