Wireless Home Blood Pressure Monitoring With Health Coaching for Hypertension Management at a Federally Qualified Health Center: Pilot Randomized Controlled Feasibility and Acceptability Study.

In 30 seconds

This 6-month, two-arm randomized pilot trial assessed feasibility and acceptability of wireless home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) with health coaching among adults with uncontrolled or newly diagnosed hypertension receiving care across three federally qualified health center networks. Of 200 analyzed participants, 51% identified as Hispanic. In the wireless arm, 86% transmitted multiple readings; 95% of survey respondents found the device easy to set up and use. At 6 months, systolic BP was below 140 mm Hg in 63% of the wireless arm and 74% of the standard-HBPM arm. The exploratory comparison was not powered to establish clinical effectiveness or equivalence.

Key findings

• Among analyzed wireless-arm participants, 86% (63/73) transmitted multiple readings over 6 months.
• Of 60 wireless-arm survey respondents, 95% (n=57) agreed or strongly agreed that the device was easy to set up and use.
• At 6 months, 63% (46/73) in the wireless arm and 74% (94/127) in the standard arm had systolic BP <140 mm Hg (P =.08).
• Only 5% (7/127) of standard-HBPM participants returned paper logs.

Why it matters

Remote monitoring may help collect home BP readings in underserved settings where conventional paper logs are rarely returned. This pilot suggests that wireless monitoring can be acceptable to participants in FQHC care, including a predominantly Hispanic population. However, the BP outcome comparison is exploratory and cannot determine whether wireless monitoring improves control relative to standard HBPM.

What to keep in mind

This pilot was not powered to compare clinical effectiveness, and arm-level allocation counts were not retained, preventing estimation of feasibility among all randomized participants. BP outcome comparisons are hypothesis generating, not evidence of equivalence.