Telemedicine improves diagnosis of essential hypertension compared with usual care.

A randomized controlled trial was conducted to assess the efficacy of a telemedicine service for the diagnosis of essential hypertension. The telemedicine service consisted of using an automatic home blood pressure monitor connected to an ordinary telephone line for the transmission of the data to a central computer. After use of the home monitor for a week, the results were converted to a report form and faxed to the patient's physician.