Personal schedules
Most patients and HCPs appreciated the convenience brought about by the intervention. It saved patients’ clinic visits, travelling and waiting time, especially for the working individuals. They could also monitor at a time that suited their schedules. Patients recounted that they no longer had to record BP readings manually on a monitoring sheet, and HCPs could monitor the readings from the portal easily without having to wait for the patients to bring the physical copy at their next clinic visit.One thing is because I can easily monitor it at home, only one week once, out of my own convenience, how I want to check it. Sometimes I do it after I came back from work, after I have a wash, relax myself… You just have to press a button, it got transmitted... for you. Rather than you have to jot down…the timing… (F096, female, 46 years old)During the intervention period, patients received scheduled and unscheduled teleconsultations from the clinic to follow up on their BP readings. While F029 (male, 49 years old) liked that the timing was flexible as “at that time [when they called] I was busy so I rescheduled…”, three other patients described how scheduled calls were not punctual despite having made appointments, or that the calls did not match their work schedules, resulting in rejected or missed calls.Office hours and sometimes, you are in the midst of doing something, and then the call come in. So, it’s like a lot of interruption…Your care team, they have a job to do. They follow up and all. I mean that’s good. But for people working, I think it’s a little bit inconvenient. Especially the few times when they called me, I was in the meeting with my boss. So, I have to say, “No, I’m busy now. I cannot talk to you." (F119, male, 58 years old)The care managers, who usually made the calls, mentioned that calls to most patients were completed smoothly. However, there were instances of unfriendly remarks from patients or unresponsiveness and they had to make multiple calls to patients which added to their workload.Sometimes they work same times as us…they will need to keep the hand phones [aside] so they can’t answer… It’s not that they don’t want to [answer]. (S003, female, care manager)