BP monitoring APPs help GPs confirm patients with high BP problems more quickly and in the comfort of their own home.
Patients presenting with a blood pressure in clinic of 140/90 would require ambulatory or home based monitoring of two reading, at least a minute apart, and twice a day for a week. The GP is advised to discard the first days readings and then to use the average value of the remaining readings to confirm a diagnosis. So how this would be done? In the past the patient would have to wait until an ambulatory device was available to take home however these are costly. Many patients who are prone to high blood pressure have their own blood pressure monitor as they can be purchased as cheaply as £15 from a retail chemist. Using these monitors and new Apps this process can be more painless, less costly and carried out more quickly with the aid of your smartphone.
Last year an App which helps patients to monitor their blood pressure using a home BP monitor won the first prize at the inaugural BMJ hack day. The App, has a video to help the patient and to tell them when and how to take their blood pressure. The app prevents wrong values being submitted, it can work offline and across different platforms. Currently the data does not go directly to the GP, however this is entirely possible.
But can the data be hacked? Would this be a problem for the patient? What would be the difference in accuracy between clinic readings and patients own readings?
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