1. Setting: The Department of Veterans Affairs Myrtle Beach Community Based outpatient Clinic (CBOC) offers Primary Care services to more than 10,000 veterans, with over 4,800 classified as rural. Considering our high percentage of rural veterans, Telehealth provides diverse access to care, promotes self management skills and empowers the veteran through information and education. Background: The evidenced based management of hypertension utilizing telemonitoring and self management is well documented in the literature. Not only are the studies showing positive outcomes in better hypertensivon control but they also suggest there is potential to reduce cost through the use of technologies that promote self care. This can lead to reductions in the number of visits a patients makes to the clinic and allows health professionals to be alerted to, and act upon, unsafe blood pressure (BP) levels between visits in a more timely fashion through remote monitoring. Documented patient satisfaction surveys have been consistently high.. Summary and Conclusions: Using telehealth in hypertension management has been useful in reducing therapeutic inertia. Considering the large rural population in Myrtle Beach, some patients find it difficult to come back for BP checks in the clinic. Telehealth offers a means of tracking their BP in a more convenient, timely manner. The recent addition of IVR (interactive voice recognition) technology has expanded access to veterans with only cell phone availability. Telehealth also frees clinic space as the need for for traditional follow up declines. Patient satisfaction and reported adherence improved. Telehealth is not only beneficial in cost avoidance but in the last year has become reimbursable. Results: Average BP on enrollment in telehealth was 160/90. Average at 3 months was 129/74 and at 6 months 126/73. This shows a 31/16 mm Hg reduction in systolic BP at 3 months and a 34/17 mm Hg decline at 6 months. There was an average 2 medication changes in the first 3 months and an average of 1 addition change in the second 3 month period. Only 3 patients had no medication adjustment, i.e., therapeutic inertia is low. OQUIN data indicates that BP is controlled to goal in 72% of patients in the provider panels Copyright OQUIN 2012 Utilization of Home Telehealth in the Management of Hypertension in the Primary Care Setting—One Providers Experience Ginia Pierre, MD, Linda Spadaro, APN, Anita Sultan, MD, Florence N. Hutchison, MD, Shakaib Rehman, MD Ralph H. Johnson Medical Center, Myrtle Beach CBOC Objectives : Utilizing VA approved vendor data bases, compare patient’s BP on admission to telehealth, 3 months post enrollment and 6 months post enrollment. Only patients with a singular diagnosis of hypertension were used in this data collection Utilize the OQUIN Hypertensive Initiative Data base to compare performance of single provider to the overall experience of all clinics in the OQUIN on the following measure: The percentage of hypertensive patients who have BP controlled to <140//<90 in the previous year Utilizing the VHA Support Service Center (VSSC) ProClarity y Data cube compare provider percentage of patients utilizing home telehealth technology to other providers at Myrtle Beach CBOC 61 pts in Providers CCHT panel have HTN Dx- 14% of Providers Panel w/ HTN Dx enrolled in Telehealth Patients Enrolled in Telehealth Blood Pressure Compare at Three Points in Time At Admission 3 Months After Admission 6 Months After Admission Average Blood Pressure At Admission, 3 Months, and 6 Months Systolic Diastolic Methods: All telehealth data are collected through VA approved Vendors sites. The initial BP reading is obtained in clinic on enrollment to the telehealth program. The BP collected for comparison are mean BP reading for month 3 (N=48) and month 6 (N=37). OQUIN data presented are from calendar year 2011 VSSC data reflects data for the last 12 months.