Artificial intelligence assistance in arterial hypertension follow up and management

Renata Romić, Venija Cerovečki

Keywords: AI; Hypertension; Follow-up; Adherence; Blood pressure

Background:

Arterial hypertension (AH) is a well known disease to Family medicine specialists (FMS). Doctors have extensive knowledge about the disease, treatment, complications and outcomes. Still, there are many factors negatively impacting final results. Low patient education, poor medical adherence, patient indifference but also lack of doctor availability all hinder efforts to treat AH successfully. Therefore, we are in the process of designing a study to evaluate the potential use of artificial intelligence (AI) based mobile application in follow up and management of patients with AH.

Research questions:

Do patients suffering from AH, who are using AI digital assistant have better blood presure (BP) regulation.
Is there better medical adherence (related to medication intake and self monitoring blood pressure) and less often FMS consultation in patients who are using digital assistant.

Method:

Estimated number of participants is N=180 (90 examinees, 90 controls). Sampling will be done alternately between patients who come to FM office, and who enter the including criteria. Examinees will use the AI based digital assistant to take records of the BP measurement, while control group will keep record of their BP log on a paper. Planned follow up consultations are after 3, 9 and 12 months.
Goals of the study are to determine values of systolic and diastolic BP in both groups, to determine medication adherence rate, the ratio of planned and realized consultations with FMS and duration of consultation with FMS regarding AH.

Results:

Preliminary results (pilot project) showed that AI based digital assistant resulted in the decrease of average systolic BP for -4mmHg, and it reduced duration of consultation with FMS regarding blood pressure regulation.

Conclusions:

AI digital assistant based on mobile application is useful tool in follow up and managemnt of arterial hypertension. It is easy to use application and provides benefits both to family medicines specialists and patients.

Points for discussion:

Can AI replace doctors' decision making process

Reliability of adherence measuring regardless of therapy regime differences ( type of medication, side effects, number of pills/day)

Do all patients have access to constant internet connection

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