Telemonitoring--or better follow-up?

摘要

Is it really too much to expect general practitionersto monitorthe results of their treatments? Richard McManus and colleagues (July 17, p 163) report that, of the 1650 patients receiving anti hypertensive treatment who agreed to participate, 527 had blood pressures above 140/90 mm Hg. A further 48 who were excluded from the study had blood pressures of more than 200/100 mm Hg. Thus 35% of, presumably, the most cooperative and motivated patients had inadequately controlled blood pressure. The Summary misleadingly says that this was "despite antihypertensive treatment", whereas the study result makes it clear that it should have read "because of inadequate hypertensive treatment".