Background
hypertension, Hypertension, chronic disease
CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES, CHRONIC DISEASES, HYPERTENSION, HYPERTENSION, CHRONIC DISEASE
Hypertension is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases in Singapore, affecting 35.5% of adults aged between 18 and 74 years old [Besides lifestyle modifications and pharmacological treatment if indicated, telemedicine has increasingly been considered as an integral part of hypertension management in primary care to improve access to services, quality of care, productivity and prevention of cardiovascular diseases [The most well-received telemedicine application for hypertension management is BP telemonitoring, which allows BP readings to be transmitted remotely from the patient’s home to the physician [Singapore is a multi-ethnic and urbanized country in Asia, with a small population size of 5.7 million people and high mobile phone and internet penetration rates [The Primary Technology-Enhanced Care – Hypertension (PTEC-HT) pilot trial showed that there is an opportunity for telemedicine to improve clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness of chronic disease management programs in Singapore’s primary care. PTEC-HT was a quasi-experimental trial conducted in a polyclinic in central Singapore with patients recruited from September 2018 to March 2019. The study methodology and main results have been reported elsewhere [The current qualitative study, embedded within the PTEC-HT trial, explored the experiences and perspectives of patients and HCPs on the barriers and facilitators to the implementation and use of the intervention in the Singapore primary care setting.