Details:

• Alternative Title:
  Am J Hypertens
• Personal Author:
  Lee, Jun Soo ; Bhatt, Ami ; Jackson, Sandra L. ; Pollack, Lisa M. ; Omeaku, Nina ; ... More +

  Lee, Jun Soo ; Bhatt, Ami ; Jackson, Sandra L. ; Pollack, Lisa M. ; Omeaku, Nina ; Beasley, Kincaid Lowe ; Wilson, Cidney ; Luo, Feijun ; Roy, Kakoli Less -
• Description:
  BACKGROUND:
  
  The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a rapid increase in telehealth use. However, limited evidence exists on how rural and urban residents used telehealth and in-person outpatient services to manage hypertension during the pandemic.
  
  METHODS:
  
  This longitudinal study analyzed 701,410 US adults (18–64 years) in the MarketScan Commercial Claims Database, who were continuously enrolled from January 2017 through March 2022. We documented monthly numbers of hypertension-related telehealth and in-person outpatient visits (per 100 individuals), and the proportion of telehealth visits among all hypertension-related outpatient visits, from January 2019 through March 2022. We used Welch’s two-tail t-test to differentiate monthly estimates by rural–urban status and month-to-month changes.
  
  RESULTS:
  
  From February through April 2020, the monthly number of hypertension-related telehealth visits per 100 individuals increased from 0.01 to 6.05 (P < 0.001) for urban residents and from 0.01 to 4.56 (P < 0.001) for rural residents. Hypertension-related in-person visits decreased from 20.12 to 8.30 (P < 0.001) for urban residents and from 20.48 to 10.15 (P < 0.001) for rural residents. The proportion of hypertension-related telehealth visits increased from 0.04% to 42.15% (P < 0.001) for urban residents and from 0.06% to 30.98% (P < 0.001) for rural residents. From March 2020 to March 2022, the monthly average of the proportions of hypertension-related telehealth visits was higher for urban residents than for rural residents (10.19% vs. 6.96%; P < 0.001).
  
  CONCLUSIONS:
  
  Data show that rural residents were less likely to use telehealth for hypertension management. Understanding trends in hypertension-related telehealth utilization can highlight disparities in the sustained use of telehealth to advance accessible health care.
  
  
• Keywords:
  [+]

  Adult Blood Pressure Commercial Insurance COVID-19 Humans Hypertension Hypertension Management In-person Outpatient Longitudinal Studies Pandemics Telehealth Telemedicine
• Source:
  Am J Hypertens. 37(2):107-111
• Pubmed ID:
  37772661
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC10900132
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/ ; CC/CDC HHSUnited States/

  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/ ; CC/CDC HHSUnited States/ Less -
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  [+]

  urn:sha-512:5958d21f31f19bc87b092ae7c46ca0fa0e56125576efd40040c801da9a872738f366ec669b595f5258b7152524f40afe4059a438695d1eac09e0a24665f42f68
• File Type:

• Supporting Files:
  No Additional Files