Heart to Heart: BP Control Partners

Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to compare a new model of care that uses cellular-enabled home blood pressure (BP) telemonitoring and combines it with team-based BP control using a pharmacist to help manage BP medications and to give patients advice on diet and exercise, to an enhanced usual care group that only receives the monitoring device and basic instructions, in individuals with a history of uncontrolled hypertension. The main question\[s\] it aims to answer are:

1. Among patients with a history of uncontrolled hypertension, evaluate the impact of team-based care using technology-enabled monitoring on improving goal-directed systolic blood pressure (SBP) levels relative to enhanced usual care (primary).
2. Assess the potential for heterogeneity of treatment effects by race, age, sex, and social deprivation index (secondary).
3. Examine the impact of the intervention on hypertension self-efficacy, medication adherence, timeliness of medication change, satisfaction with care, adoption of home BP monitoring, and the change in mean BP in diverse patients, many of whom have adverse social determinants of health (SDOH) (secondary/exploratory).

Both groups will be asked to check their BP at home using a cellular-enabled home BP monitoring device that's provided. Patients in the Technology enabled Team Care (TTC) intervention group will have regular phone calls from a clinically trained and experienced pharmacist that works with their doctor/provider and who has reviewed their home BP readings. This pharmacist will help them adjust their medicines, provide brief nutrition and physical activity advice, and may refer them for help with any social challenges (not enough proper food, transportation problems, etc.) that they may be experiencing. An enhanced usual care group will serve as the comparison group and will receive the BP cuff monitoring device and basic instructions but will not receive ongoing monitoring or team care as described above.

Researchers will compare the effect of the TTC intervention model to enhanced usual care to assess the impact on SBP levels at 6 and 12 months follow-up, as well as on a variety of patient-reported outcomes.

Conditions

• Hypertension

Interventions

OTHER

Technology-enabled Team Care

Patients randomized to the TTC arm will receive telehealth-enabled team-based care. The team will include a physician and/or advanced practice provider, a pharmacist with Certified Pharmacist Practitioner (CPP) status or similar skills in NC, and will incorporate brief nutritionist-directed lifestyle behaviors counseling (DASH diet; exercise) initially delivered every other week by phone for two months, followed by monthly calls (once SBP values achieve individualized goal and remain stable for 14 days) over 12 months supported by cellular enabled home BP monitoring.

OTHER

Enhanced Usual Care

Patients randomized to the enhanced usual care (EUC) arm will receive telehealth enabled home BP monitoring equipment including set-up and instruction and basic hypertension-specific lifestyle (diet, exercise) instruction and materials at baseline, but will not receive telehealth-enabled team-based care, active home BP monitoring by a pharmacist, or detailed DASH intensive lifestyle counseling.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute

  collaborator OTHER

• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

  collaborator OTHER

• East Carolina University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Doyle Cummings, Pharm.D. · East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

19 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-08-10

Primary Completion

2027-07-30

Completion

2029-07-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations