Effectiveness of a chronic disease surveillance systems for blood pressure monitoring

Abstract

Information Technology (IT) enables health care providers to manage patients with chronic conditions through identification, follow up and administration of specific interventions. In our setting, we developed a surveillance system for chronic diseases. The aim of this study was to show its efficacy on monitoring blood pressure throughout a cluster randomized controlled trial. Patients without blood pressure registries (condition 1) or with high blood pressure measurements (condition 2) were randomized to be detected by the surveillance system or to receive usual care. The proportion of patients with at least one blood pressure measurement within three months of follow up was 49.9% (207 patients) in the intervention group and 37% (195) in the control group (p<0.001) for condition 1. And 61% (224) vs. 50% (239) respectively (p=0.002) for condition 2. Patients under the surveillance system have higher proportion of blood pressure measurements, showing this study an improvement on the process of care with this IT tool.