Improving Hypertension Care Using the Internet

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Institute of Medicine's Crossing the Quality Chasm suggests that, without intervention, it takes, on average, 17 years to disseminate new knowledge generated by randomized trials into practice. Evidence-based computerized reminders have proven to be effective at improving the quality of care for cancer preventive services, yet such systems have rarely been tested for improving the quality of care for patients with chronic conditions such as hypertension. The aim of this Phase 1 SBIR is to develop and test and formatively test a working prototype of an interactive website with the following major functions, based on consensus guidelines for hypertension care from the Sixth Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC6), sponsored by the National Institutes of Health: 1) to proactively query patients, before each visit with a health care provider, to understand what hypertension care evidence-based guidelines suggest they are due, 2) to provide brief, tailored, on-screen feedback to patients regarding the hypertension care they are due, 3) to provide brief, tailored, faxed reminders to health care providers, timed to coincide with the patients' visit, regarding the hypertension care they are due. This expands on the current work of Green Lights, Inc. in developing a single website, www.myexpertdoctor.com, where patients would have access to computer tailored, guideline-based recommendations, for the management of the most common health conditions in the US. We believe this approach has significant potential for disseminating evidence-based consensus guidelines for hypertension and therefore have a significant and positive impact on blood pressure control in the United States.