Initial Evaluation of Telehealth Blood Pressure Stations in Nutrition Centers

The purpose of TEAhM is to determine if telehealth blood pressure stations can be installed and used in senior nutrition centers and to do a preliminary comparison of blood pressure outcomes among nutrition center clients who use the telehealth blood pressure stations compared to participants who do not use the stations. Specifically, the goals of the project are to determine if these monitors can be successfully implemented in this community-based setting, the degree to which older adults with hypertension are comfortable using the technology, and whether remote nurse monitoring of blood pressure using this technology is a feasible supplement to office-based care.

TEAhM will be conducted in four senior nutrition centers in the state of Ohio. Using these facilities as field centers, we will recruit 144 older, hypertensive adults who receive nutrition assistance at these centers. Wright State staff will obtain permission from enrolled participants in the intervention centers to contact primary care physicians for the purpose of obtaining recommended intervention protocols and defining referral criteria for changes in blood pressure treatment. We will install telehealth kiosks at two of the four nutrition centers. Participants who enroll at the two centers with kiosks will be considered "intervention participants" and those who enroll at the two centers without the kiosks will be considered "control participants." The kiosks will enable participants to conduct self-monitoring of their blood pressure at the nutrition facility. Blood pressure data from intervention participants will be sent to a central server managed by Healthanywhere, the telehealth partner in this project. Nurse-researchers from WSU will receive email alerts about out of range blood pressure measures, monitor blood pressure readings once a week, and make referrals for medical care according to criteria defined by participants' primary care physicians at the time of enrollment. Control and intervention participants will receive educational materials on general wellness that are publicly available. Demographic information, background health, comfort with technology, and baseline blood pressure measures will be collected at baseline in on paper forms by WSU nurse researchers. Follow up blood pressure measures and other health utilization measures and reported health events will be collected from both intervention and control facilities during follow-up phone contacts with study personnel every two months. Blood pressure will be measured for all participants at the end of the study.