Patients with hypertension given access to EHR-based tools to help them manage drug regimens did not demonstrate improved medication adherence or lower blood pressure, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Here are four things to know:
1. For the study, funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research and National Institutes of Health, researchers evaluated data on 794 patients with hypertension who took three or more medications at one time collected from April 30, 2012, through February 29, 2016.
2. One group received access to the EHR tools, which included information sheets about medication and dosages, while a second group received the EHR tools, along with nurse-led medication management guidance. The control group received usual care.
3. Patients who received the EHR tools and nurse-led education showed an improved understanding of instructions and dosing, compared to the regular group. However, the interventions showed no significant effect on patients' medication adherence. Blood pressure even worsened in the patient group using EHR tools only.
4. While researchers could not identify the cause of these results, they noted some of the medication information sheets given to the group using only EHR tools contained information about adverse side effects and possibly motivated patients to reduce the dose or stop taking their blood pressure drugs without consulting a healthcare professional.
"We are increasingly asking patients to do very complicated things with medications, and we don’t always build effective ways to support their successful use of medications," study author Stephen Persell, MD, associate professor of medicine in the general internal medicine and geriatrics division at Evanston-based Northwestern University, told Futurity.
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