Educating hypertension. BS@edu

Between 2019 and 2022, despite going through a pandemic, an innex LAB was carried out with a team of primary care professionals from Badalona Serveis Asistencials (BSA). The team of primary health experts generated a “no-code” prototype to test the functional design of BS@edu, the digital platform for the education of people with chronic diseases. The first patient education resource has been tested with high blood pressure (hypertension).

Four out of every 10 people suffer from hypertension, and what is worse, two do not know that they suffer from it, and of the two who do, one is not well controlled. A small disaster, and it is no wonder that hypertension is the leading cause of death in the world. Beyond the great harm to people’s health, the economic costs resulting from hypertension, especially for those who are poorly controlled, can end up directly or indirectly representing a significant part of the health system’s expenditure.

Addressing hypertension through patient education

Do you know what the most surprising thing about all this is? It is that an essential part of the correct treatment of hypertension is the education of the people who suffer from it. Until now, formal patient education has not been addressed as an important part of the treatment formula. If a health professional has a person with hypertension in front of him or her to offer health advice in the context of follow-up, it would be useful to know to what extent the person will understand him or her. Hence the idea of trying to formally educate people with chronic diseases. The educational program aims to empower and increase the autonomy of people with permanent health conditioners. Health empowerment improves, in the first instance, adherence to treatment and promotes better health outcomes. In the medium term, it can improve self-management and self-control of the chronic disease and ultimately reduce the associated complications.

BS@edu

The project’s driving team belongs to a comprehensive healthcare organization (BSA) and is made up of different healthcare professionals who, as a whole, are highly skilled in leadership and coordination of community processes, monitoring, and care of complex chronic patients, as well as acquired the pedagogical, design, and digital skills.
The tool transmits knowledge and evaluates it, so that the prescribing professionals of the training resource, doctors and nurses, can detect possible educational gaps that can be managed from the practice.