Clinician Decisions After Notification of Elevated Blood Pressure Measurements From Patients in a Remote Monitoring Program

IMPORTANCE: Guidelines recommend using telehealth for hypertension management, but insufficient evidence is available to guide strategies for incorporating telehealth data into clinical practice. OBJECTIVE: To describe how primary care teams responded to elevated remote blood pressure (BP) alerts in the electronic health record (EHR) in a randomized clinical trial of BP telemonitoring conducted in routine practice settings. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This retrospective cohort study reviewed EHR documentation from May 8, 2018, to August 9, 2019, in a single urban academic family practice site. Primary care teams comprising 28 attending physicians and nurse practitioners, residents, and nurses cared for 162 patients in a text-based clinical trial of remote BP monitoring remote BP monitoring. Data were analyzed from October 21, 2019, to April 30, 2021. EXPOSURES: Clinicians received a direct message in their EHR inbox when patients submitted at least 3 elevated BP readings. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Categories and frequencies of clinician action, created via review of EHR-documented clinician responses to EHR alerts by 2 physicians. RESULTS: Patients in this study (n = 162) were predominantly female (111 [68.5%]) and Black or African American (146 [90.1%]), whereas attending physicians (n = 21) were predominantly female (13 [61.9%]) and non-Hispanic White (19 [90.5%]) with a mean (SD) age of 51.6 (11.1) years. Five hundred fifty-two alerts fell into 12 categories of clinical actions. Clinicians acted on 343 alerts (62.1%). Common remote activities were to reconcile medications and assess adherence (120 of 552 alerts [21.7%]) and verify BP measurement technique (65 of 552 alerts [11.8%]). Clinicians also commonly requested appointments (120 of 552 alerts [21.7%]) and/or saw the patient in a subsequent office visit (114 of 552 alerts [20.7%]). Ninety-six alerts (17.4%) resulted in medication changes; half of these changes were remote (48 of 96 [50.0%]), and the other half were visit-based. For 209 of 552 alerts (37.9%), no changes were made to the care plan, typically without documenting clinical rationale (196 of 209 instances [93.8%]). Exploratory EHR review was used to infer potential clinical rationale for 106 (54.1%) of such cases, but there was insufficient information for the remaining 90 (45.9%). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: These findings suggest that EHR alerts for elevated BP during remote monitoring were effective in prompting a mix of remote and office-based management. It was also common for the plan of care to remain unchanged, possibly suggesting need for more refined alerts and improved clinician support.