Telemonitoring Hypertension and Breast Cancer

This is a prospective pilot study with collaborating sites of UMMC Cancer Center Research Institute, UMMC Cancer Treatment Center, UMMC Center for National Telehealth Center for Excellence and UMMC Myrlie Evers-Williams Institute for the Elimination of Health Disparities. The study aims to evaluate the feasibility and safety of remote hypertension management using a home blood pressure telemonitoring to provide individualized hypertension management, health and wellness education for hypertension prevention of women with breast cancer stages I-IV in Mississippi at the UMMC Cancer Treatment Center. Additionally, the study will examine the effectiveness of remote hypertension management using home BP telemonitoring in achieving BP control with 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines. Further, the study will assess the social determinant of health screening and service connection with UMMC EversCare and is a part of Myrlie Evers-Williams Institute for Elimination of Health Disparities to decrease food insecurity in 40 women patients who participate in the remote hypertension management monitoring pilot project using home BP telemonitoring program. Patients with breast cancer and elevated BP, as identified by UMMC electronic health record, will be initially recruited for study enrollment and obtain informed consent by Breast Oncologist and/or Primary Care Providers. The patients will then be contacted by Telehealth Nurse Coordinator and/or Research Specialist via telephone to confirm consent of participation, awareness of who will be their contact through-out the study and confirm address to mail telemonitoring kit. Patients will be mailed a telemonitoring kit including an iPad tablet equipped with a wireless BP cuff that transmits measurements directly to the UMMC EHR and monitored by the UMMC Center for Telehealth. Consenting patients will participate in a 6-month intervention period during which they will transmit daily blood pressure recordings with regular contact by a Telehealth Nurse Coordinator who will also provide education and encourage healthy lifestyle habits. Study patients will be instructed to access a daily "health session" which begins by asking two questions include: 1) "Have you taken your medications in the past 24 hours?" and 2) "Are you having any problems that you would like your nurse coordinator to call you about before the next scheduled call?" Patients will then obtain a BP measurement using the appropriate technique. Patients are asked to obtain two consecutive BP measurements during each session and register at least 6 sessions per week. Patients are encouraged to equally divide daily health sessions between the morning and evenings and patients may register more than one session per day. If less than 75% of measurements are at goal systolic BP \<140 mmHg and diastolic BP \<90 mmHg, the patient's Telehealth Nurse Coordinator will contact them and assess for medication adherence and report to the patients Breast Oncologist and/or Primary Care Provider. The Breast Oncologist and/or Primary Care Provider will be provided with a monthly report of the patient's progress including medication, biometric information and any hospital or clinic visits. Food resource provision. Implementation procedures for providing food resources will be tailored and evaluated in partnership with UMMC Ambulatory EversCare-MEWI. Data analysis will track metrics of study enrollment, study completion, safety and BP change from baseline. Much of the study protocol is based on a recently published clinical trial demonstrating significantly improved BP control using home BP telemonitoring as compared to usual care.