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Patient portal use leads to BP control in patients with newly diagnosed hypertension

Patient sociodemographic factors may explain why patient portal use leads to BP control among people with newly diagnosed hypertension, according to recent study findings in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

“Ongoing patient communication with their providers can aid patients in treating hypertension by allowing for medication adjustments as necessary and patient questions on lifestyle modifications to be addressed between appointments,” William Manard, MD, from the department of family and community medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, and colleagues wrote. “Patient portals within electronic health records provide a unique opportunity for patients to be involved in their care and to communicate with their provider between appointments.”

Due to lack of prior research on BP outcomes and patient portal use, the researchers evaluated whether patients who used a patient portal were more likely to achieve controlled BP than those who did not.

In this cross-sectional study, the researchers identified 1,517 patients aged 21 years and older with an incident hypertension diagnosis between 2008 and 2010 from the Department Family and Community Medicine’s Primary Care Patient Data Registry at Saint Louis University School of Family Medicine. They estimated the association between portal use and incident BP control during follow-up (2011-2015) by using Cox proportional hazard models before and after adjusting for covariates such as sociodemographics, smoking, obesity, and other physical and mental comorbidities. 

During follow-up, the researchers discovered 90.7% of total cohort achieved BP control, and more patients achieved control with portal use compared to those who did not use the portal (95% vs 89.2%; P = .001). Manard and colleagues found portal users had a higher likelihood of BP control compared to nonusers (HR = 1.24; 95% CI, 1.06-1.45) after an adjustment for age. Portal users were younger (P < .0001), more often white (P < .0001), more often married (P < .0001), and were mostly from upper-middle to highest socioeconomic status (P < .0001) compared with nonusers. However, portal use was no longer associated with BP control after adjusting for sociodemographics (HR = 0.98; 95% confidence interval, 0.83-1.16).

“Overall, the relationship between portal use and BP control is explained by demographic factors… and total health care utilization,” Manard and colleagues wrote. “Additional research is needed to determine which sociodemographic groups benefit the most from access to patient portals and what conditions and what outcomes are most sensitive to improvement via portal use.” – by Savannah Demko

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.