University of Michigan Selects Tactio Remote Patient Monitoring Platform to Support Clinical Pharmacist Management of Patients With Uncontrolled Hypertension

​​​​​​​​​Tactio Health Group has been selected by the University of Michigan Department of Family Medicine to provide its TactioRPM Remote Patient Monitoring Platform in a pilot study that will implement a mobile pharmacist-led home blood pressure (BP) monitoring program. The intervention will incorporate and test the effectiveness of pharmacist-directed home BP monitoring and medication reminders in patients with uncontrolled hypertension.

Twenty-five subjects will be equipped with Bluetooth-enabled BP monitors and Tactio mobile apps, and required to send over their patient-generated data through TactioRPM to clinical pharmacists, who will intervene as necessary when remotely observing uncontrolled hypertension. The effort is led by Lorraine Buis, Ph.D., assistant professor in the University's Department of Family Medicine, whose research focuses on the use of communication technologies for health promotion and chronic disease self-management.

Hypertension (HTN), one of the most important cardiovascular risk factors, affects about 78 million Americans and burdens the US healthcare system with an estimated $42.9 billion in direct costs. Home BP monitoring is an important and effective strategy for HTN management, yet reliance on patient-maintained paper-based logs may lead to problems with data quality and latency, which compromise effective and efficient use in primary care.

“This study seeks to put patient collected data into the hands of a healthcare provider who has the ability to act on that data in near-real time. I am excited by the opportunity to connect patients with their care team in a way that has the potential to dramatically change routine clinical practice in primary care. By using the TactioRPM platform to connect patients with their providers, and by better understanding how to meaningfully integrate this technology into a clinical setting, we have the potential to demonstrate the full benefit that mobile health has to offer. “ said Lorraine Buis.

“Tactio is honored to be chosen by such a prestigious research institution to support a forward-looking project that is important not only in the context of public health but also recognizes the potential for using the highly skilled and available, professional pharmacist workforce to support proactive management of patients with chronic disease," said Michel Nadeau, P.Eng., CEO of Tactio Health Group.

Recruitment efforts are expected to begin next month and the trial will run until the second quarter of 2016.

About Tactio Health Group

Tactio Health Group, founded in 2009, helps innovative healthcare organizations worldwide tap the power of mobile and connected health to improve clinical research, remote care workflows and patient engagement. The TactioRPM (remote patient monitoring) FDA Class 1 MDDS digital platform for health professionals and patients combines mobile apps, web tools, HIPAA-compliant secured cloud services and vendor-agnostic connected health device integrations. TactioRPM is available as a complete end-to-end system and as a platform for innovative healthcare application developers to provide digital coaching programs for patients with diabetes, HTN, ATH, COPD, CHF and obesity. Tactio apps have been downloaded by more than 4 million users in 135 countries and 17 languages.

For more information about Tactio, visit www.tactiohealth.com or follow @TactioHealth on Twitter.

About the University of Michigan’s Department of Family Medicine

The University of Michigan Health System's Department of Family Medicine is a nationally recognized leader in patient care, education and research. Since the Department was founded in 1978, its presence has exemplified the principles of family medicine and promoted them throughout the state, the nation and the world.

For more information, visit http://medicine.umich.edu/dept/family-medicine.

TactioRPM is a trademark of Tactio Health Group. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.