Pharmacist-led model for screening and Management of Hypertension
NanoHealth
Resolve to Save Lives (An Initiative of Vital Strategies)
Background
Hypertension afflicts over 220 million in India and is the leading cause of cardiovascular diseases, the cause of 1/3rd of deaths worldwide. In rural Bihar, the prevalence of hypertension is 20.1% in the population above 18 years old. The disease burden requires innovative solutions for hypertension screening and management. Pharmacists are generally the first point of contact for healthcare seekers in rural Indian milieus, thus presenting a unique task-sharing opportunity to curtail the increasing burden of hypertension by leveraging pharmacist services for screening and management of hypertension.
About the Study
The study involved a pharmacist-led task-sharing model of hypertension management. The aim was to assess whether pharmacy-led opportunistic screening can boost patient enrolment, lead to increased diagnosis and awareness among patients and improve blood pressure control.
Methodology
This telemedicine enabled study involved 20 private pharmacies in Bihar where pharmacists monitored the blood pressure of patients and trained physicians did free consultations at the pharmacies. The number of screenings done, the number of patients enrolled and change in blood pressure values during the treatment were noted.
Outcome
The findings suggest that task sharing with pharmacies can help in early detection of the disease and lead to improvement in blood pressure. Strategies to increase screening and retention can be a further help.
In underserved settings, such as rural India, access to healthcare and formal healthcare providers is limited. In this backdrop, task sharing with private pharmacies, which are in many cases, the first point of contact for the rural population, becomes a plausible alternative to better hypertension screening and management. However, retention and adherence can be crucial to the success of such endeavours. Financial incentives, albeit helpful, may not be a sustainable solution given the chronic nature of the disease. Community support and engagement on the other hand can be leveraged to achieve results in the long term. Hence, even though the Bihar Pharmacist Hypertension Study showed promising results, aligning patient and provider incentives can be decisive to the success of such initiatives.