A Mobile Health (mHealth) Strategy for Improving Blood Pressure Control Among Adult Hypertensive African Americans

The University of Chicago

Status

Enrolling

Conditions

Hypertension

Blood Pressure

Treatments

Other: USeeBP

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT06078540

IRB23-1110

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to test the proof-of-concept for adding a novel mHealth application, USeeBP, to the established UChicago Medicine Ambulatory Medicine Remote-Patient Monitoring (UCM-RPM) Hypertension Management Program in a population of African American adults with poorly controlled hypertension.

Full description

This is a single-arm, proof of concept study, which we will use to assess for initial evidence of efficacy and technical feasibility of adding the USeeBP mHealth app as an adjunct to the UCM-RPM program.

This study integrates the USeeBP app into the existing UCM-RPM clinical pathway. Regular UCM-RPM program activities include monitoring home blood pressure (BP) measurement flowsheets, performing patient telephone and EPIC MyChart message outreach, and making medication adjustments. USeeBP is a secure, chat-based smartphone application. The app connects to a patient's electronic BP cuff (eCuff) via Bluetooth and sends BP data to the UCM-RPM program (rather than using the companion app to the eCuff that is used in the UCM-RPM program). The USeeBP app also allows the patient to set BP check and medication reminders, as well as provides patient education and opportunities to participate in healthy behavior challenges.

The primary study goal is to measure the effect of the USeeBP mobile app on home BP. Serial home blood pressure measurements will be collected at multiple time points. We hypothesize that there will be a decrease in BP across the study period.

Enrollment

30 estimated patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 65 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

African American
Ages 18 to 65 years old
Able to demonstrate English reading literacy of at least 8th grade level [Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine, Revised (REALM-R) score ≥ 6]
Prior hypertension (HTN) diagnosis
Clinically measured SBP ≥ 160 mmHg recorded during at least 2 of last 4 encounters within past 2 years
UCM-RPM Hypertension Management Program current or eligible participant
Access to an Android or Apple iOS smartphone and its corresponding health app
Access to an active data plan or home Wi-Fi
Willing to use wireless electronic blood pressure cuff (eCuff)
Has access to EPIC myChart mobile app or is willing to establish myChart account and download app
Willing to download USeeBP study app to phone
Willing to download and use USeeBP app with staff assistance

Exclusion criteria

Hypertension is managed by a specialist (specialist prescribes the anti-hypertensive therapies)
Baseline blood pressure greater than 180/110
Prior enrollment in the study
Known pregnancy
Prisoners
Active opioid dependency
Homelessness
Psychiatric hospitalization in the last year
Serious existing medical conditions that may make BP control difficult or necessitate frequent hospitalization (cirrhosis or hepatic failure, stage IV or V chronic kidney disease, interstitial nephritis, pulmonary arterial hypertension, right heart failure, history of dementia or neurocognitive disability, advanced heart failure, organ transplant, immunosuppressive therapy, active cancer treatment, patients on hospice care), stroke or myocardial infarction in past 90 days, severe aortic stenosis
Hospital admission for primary diagnosis of hypertensive emergency, hypertensive urgency, or uncontrolled hypertension in the past 90 days