About 70 million people have high blood pressure in the United States alone. And like many other chronic diseases, it’s become increasingly recognized that clinic visits every 3 months just doesn’t cut it when managing high blood pressure.
We’ve talked about how home blood pressure monitoring can help fill that gap, including reviewing the best connected blood pressure monitors on the market. For patients with standard, unconnected blood pressure monitors, we’ve reviewed some great blood pressure apps to help them ditch the paper and pen, like Hello Heart.
Quanttus, a digital health company exploring new technology for blood pressure management, recently released a new blood pressure app called Q Heart. Q Heart lets users track two things – blood pressure and medications.
Reminders to check blood pressure can be set; the default is three times per day — that seems like overkill and definitely something to advise patients to change. Users can also set up generic medication reminders — actual medication names and doses can’t be entered, just the time that the user is supposed to take some medication(s).
For blood pressure tracking, which is where Q Heart excels, entry of a new blood pressure reading is really easy and straightforward. I was also happy to see a prompt pop up reminding users on correct technique for measuring blood pressure. After entering the blood pressure, users can also add specific tags for that reading like recent activities or something they ate.
Users can review this data in list or chart form. They can also email it to themselves in CSV or PDF form; from there, they can share it with their doctor. Unfortunately, direct sharing with a patient’s doctor isn’t an option right now, although hopefully that’ll change soon.
Likes:
- Easy to enter blood pressure readings
- Information on correctly measuring blood pressure presented when users enter new reading
- Able to share data as CSV or PDF
- Can set up reminders to check blood pressure
- Apple Health integrated
- Well-designed chart visualization of blood pressure trends
Dislikes:
- Medication reminder function is a bit rudimentary compared to some dedicated medication tracking apps
- Can’t share data directly with physician or care team (have to email yourself then forward)
- Blood pressure Summary screen is a bit overwhelming in terms of the number of ways in which data is summarized. A more intuitive and focused presentation could be helpful
- No Android version
Overall:
Q Heart is an excellent blood pressure app for patients who need to track their blood pressure at home and have an “unconnected” blood pressure monitor. There are better apps out there for medication tracking and there are certainly areas that could be improved. But overall, Q Heart has the key features – reminders to check blood pressure, guidance on correct technique, useful data visualization tools, and ability to export data – and a straightforward overall design that make it an outstanding blood pressure app.
[Source:-Imedicalapps]
