The Hypertension Equity Program started as a pilot program at Women & Infants Hospital in late 2022.
The idea is to provide blood pressure cuffs for women with postpartum hypertension, keeping them out of the hospital.
It’s now expanding state-wide.
The reason it’s called the Hypertension Equity Program is because African American and Hispanic patients are disproportionately affected.
“Not only are women of color at much higher risk of having hypertension during or after pregnancy, but those who have hypertension are at much higher risk of having severe health consequences,” said Women & Infants researcher and Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist, Dr. Adam Lewkowitz.
Based on that knowledge, but open to all postpartum women with high blood pressure, the Hypertension Equity program was launched in Nov. of 2022.
Over 100 patients enrolled in the pilot study were given blood pressure cuffs to keep, and were educated on how to use them.
All had access to a community health worker and were monitored remotely, either manually entering their numbers or using artificial intelligence.
“And what we found is that the people who were randomized to the artificial intelligence group actually sent in two times as many blood pressures as to those to the standard care,” said Lewkowitz.
“When we compared the rate of emergency room visits from 2022 before our program started to 2023 when it was really in full force, the rate of people, the percentage of people who had hypertension who presented to the emergency room went from about 10% to 2.5% percent.”
That’s a 75% decrease, because problems were found and treated before the patient was in crisis.
Now, through a more than $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, they’re expanding this to include all birthing hospitals in Rhode Island.
They hope to enroll more than 1500 postpartum women with high blood pressure.
Rhode Island is the first in the nation, to offer this statewide, and could serve as a roadmap for other states.
This is a collaboration with UTM healthcare, which specializes in remote health care monitoring. They’ll be providing the blood pressure cuffs and maintaining the technology.
Source: NBC 10 News