Telehealth Use to Address Cardiovascular Disease and Hypertension in the United States: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, 2011-2021.

Background: The use of telehealth for the management and treatment of hypertension and cardiovascular disease (CVD) has increased across the United States (U.S.), especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Telehealth has the potential to reduce barriers to accessing health care and improve clinical outcomes. However, implementation, outcomes, and health equity implications related to these strategies are not well understood. The purpose of this review was to identify how telehealth is being used by U.S. health care professionals and health systems to manage hypertension and CVD and to describe the impact these telehealth strategies have on hypertension and CVD outcomes, with a special focus on social determinants of health and health disparities. Methods: This study comprised a narrative review of the literature and meta-analyses. The meta-analyses included articles with intervention and control groups to examine the impact of telehealth interventions on changes to select patient outcomes, including systolic and diastolic blood pressure. A total of 38 U.S.-based interventions were included in the narrative review, with 14 yielding data eligible for the meta-analyses. Results: The telehealth interventions reviewed were used to treat patients with hypertension, heart failure, and stroke, with most interventions employing a team-based care approach. These interventions utilized the expertise of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care professionals to collaborate on patient decisions and provide direct care. Among the 38 interventions reviewed, 26 interventions utilized remote patient monitoring (RPM) devices mostly for blood pressure monitoring. Half the interventions used a combination of strategies (e.g., videoconferencing and RPM). Patients using telehealth saw significant improvements in clinical outcomes such as blood pressure control, which were comparable to patients receiving in-person care. In contrast, the outcomes related to hospitalizations were mixed. There were also significant decreases in all-cause mortality when compared to usual care. No study explicitly focused on addressing social determinants of health or health disparities through telehealth for hypertension or CVD. Conclusions: Telehealth appears to be comparable to traditional in-person care for managing blood pressure and CVD and may be seen as a complement to existing care options for some patients. Telehealth can also support team-based care delivery and may benefit patients and health care professionals by increasing opportunities for communication, engagement, and monitoring outside a clinical setting.

Effectiveness evaluation of a hypertension management program in a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC).

The objective of this study was to examine effectiveness of a Hypertension Management Program (HMP) in a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). From September 2018 through December 2019, we implemented HMP in seven clinics of an FQHC in rural South Carolina. A pre/post evaluation design estimated the association of HMP with hypertension control rates and systolic blood pressure using electronic health record data among 3,941 patients. A chi-square test estimated change in mean control rates in pre- and intervention periods. A multilevel multivariable logistic regression model estimated the incremental impact of HMP on odds of hypertension control. Results showed that 53.4% of patients had controlled hypertension pre-intervention (September 2016-September 2018); 57.3% had controlled hypertension at the end of the observed implementation period (September 2018-December 2019) (p < 0.01). Statistically significant increases in hypertension control rates were observed in six of seven clinics (p < 0.05). Odds of controlled hypertension were 1.21 times higher during the intervention period compared to pre-intervention (p < 0.0001). Findings can inform the replication of HMP in FQHCs and similar health care settings, which play a pivotal role in caring for patients with health and socioeconomic disparities.

A Mixed-Methods Approach for Evaluating Implementation Processes and Program Costs for a Hypertension Management Program Implemented in a Federally Qualified Health Center.

Team-based care approaches are effective at improving hypertension control and have been used in clinical practice to improve hypertension outcomes. This study implemented and evaluated the Hypertension Management Program (HMP), which was originally developed in a high-resource health setting, in a health system with fewer resources and a patient population disproportionately affected by hypertension. Our objectives were to describe how a health system could adapt HMP to meet their needs and calculate total program costs. HMP uses a team-based, patient-centered approach involving clinical pharmacists who contribute to managing patients who have hypertension and ultimately preventing premature death due to uncontrolled hypertension. HMP has 10 components (e.g., EHR patient registries and outreach lists, no copayment walk-in blood pressure checks). Our project involved implementing the key components of HMP in a federally qualified health center (FQHC) in South Carolina. Adaptations from the key components of HMP were made to fit the participants' settings. A mixed-methods evaluation assessed implementation processes, program costs, and implementation facilitators and barriers. From September 2018 to December 2019, clinical pharmacists conducted 758 hypertension management visits (HMVs) with 316 patients with hypertension. Total program costs for HMP were $325,532 overall and $16,277 per month. Monthly cost per patient was $3.62. The high engagement among clinical pharmacists, along with provider engagements, followed up by the subsequent referral of patients to HMP, facilitated the implementation process. Staff members observed improvements in hypertension control, which increased participation buy-in. Barriers included staff turnover, the perception among some providers that HMP took too much time, as well as perception of HMP as a pharmacy-specific initiative. A team-based, patient-centered approach to hypertension management can be adapted for FQHCs or similar settings that serve patient populations disproportionately affected by hypertension.

Two Innovative Cancer Care Programs Have Potential to Reduce Utilization and Spending.

BACKGROUND: Cancer patients often present to the emergency department (ED) and hospital for symptom management, but many of these visits are avoidable and costly. OBJECTIVE: We assessed the impact of 2 Health Care Innovation Awards that used an oncology medical home model [Community Oncology Medical Home (COME HOME)] or patient navigation model [Patient Care Connect Program (PCCP)] on utilization and spending. METHODS: Participants in COME HOME and PCCP models were matched to similar comparators using propensity scores. We analyzed utilization and spending outcomes using Medicare fee-for-service claims with unadjusted and adjusted difference-in-differences models. RESULTS: In the adjusted models, both COME HOME and PCCP were associated with fewer ED visits than a comparison group (15 and 22 per 1000 patients/quarter, respectively; P<0.01). In addition, COME HOME had lower spending ($675 per patient/quarter; P<0.01), and PCCP had fewer hospitalizations (11 per 1000 patients/quarter; P<0.05), relative to the comparison group. Among patients undergoing chemotherapy, fewer COME HOME and PCCP patients had ED visits (18 and 28 per 1000 patients/quarter, respectively; P<0.01) and fewer PCCP patients had hospitalizations (13 per 1000 patients/quarter; P<0.05), than comparison patients. CONCLUSIONS: The oncology medical home and patient navigator programs both showed reductions in spending or utilization. Adoption of such programs holds promise for improving cancer care.

Innovative Oncology Care Models Improve End-Of-Life Quality, Reduce Utilization And Spending.

Three models that received Health Care Innovation Awards from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) aimed to reduce the cost and use of health care services and improve the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries with cancer. Each emphasized a different principle: the oncology medical home, patient navigation, or palliative care. Comparing participants in each model who died during the study period to matched comparators, we found that the oncology medical home and patient navigation models were associated with decreased costs in the last ninety days of life ($3,346 and $5,824 per person, respectively) and fewer hospitalizations in the last thirty days of life (fifty-seven and forty per 1,000 people, respectively). The patient navigation model was also associated with fewer emergency department visits in the last thirty days of life and increased hospice enrollment in the last two weeks of life. These promising results can inform new initiatives for cancer patients, such as the CMS Oncology Care Model.

Chronic condition self-management surveillance: what is and what should be measured?

INTRODUCTION: The rapid growth in chronic disease prevalence, in particular the prevalence of multiple chronic conditions, poses a significant and increasing burden on the health of Americans. Maximizing the use of proven self-management (SM) strategies is a core goal of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Yet, there is no systematic way to assess how much SM or self-management support (SMS) is occurring in the United States. The purpose of this project was to identify appropriate concepts or measures to incorporate into national SM and SMS surveillance. METHODS: A multistep process was used to identify candidate concepts, assess existing measures, and select high-priority concepts for further development. A stakeholder survey, an environmental scan, subject matter expert feedback, and a stakeholder priority-setting exercise were all used to select the high-priority concepts for development. RESULTS: The stakeholder survey gathered feedback on 32 candidate concepts; 9 concepts were endorsed by more than 66% of respondents. The environmental scan indicated few existing measures that adequately reflected the candidate concepts, and those that were identified were generally specific to a defined condition and not gathered on a population basis. On the basis of the priority setting exercises and environmental scan, we selected 1 concept from each of 5 levels of behavioral influence for immediate development as an SM or SMS indicator. CONCLUSION: The absence of any available measures to assess SM or SMS across the population highlights the need to develop chronic condition SM surveillance that uses national surveys and other data sources to measure national progress in SM and SMS.