Digital Health and Telemedicine for Hypertension

Telemedicine is defined as the use of information communication technology to deliver health care services and medical education from one site to the other, where distance is a critical factor, with the ultimate scope of favoring timely provision of diagnosis and clinical care. The most common application of telemedicine for hypertension is blood pressure telemonitoring, which enables the remote exchange of blood pressure and additional information on a patient's health status between the patient and a case manager (usually a nurse or a pharmacist under the supervision of a clinician) through the web, e-mails, text messaging, or video consultation, integrated with education on lifestyle, risk factors, and proper use of antihypertensive medication. Multifaceted multimodal telemedicine interventions with asynchronous feedback showed a benefit in terms of improved blood pressure control and secondary outcomes (intensification and optimization in the use of antihypertensive drugs, reduction in the frequency of face-to-face encounters, improved adherence to treatment and quality of life), particularly in high-risk hypertensive patients. The current evidence supports the use of digital health and telemedicine in patients with difficult-to-treat hypertension and uncontrolled blood pressure or poorly adherent to medication adherence.