UC Irvine

Many Emergency Department (ED) visits are related to medication non-adherence and oftenresult in admission to the hospital (Davis et al., 2012). When patients present to the ED for an unrelated event to their chronic condition, little to no attention is paid to managing their chronic disease. Management of chronic conditions is seen as something the ED is not responsible for (Brody et al., 2014). It is estimated that approximately half of patients with chronic diseases do not take their medications as prescribed, leading to increased morbidity and mortality (Bassett et al., 2019). The goal of this Quality Improvement project was to improve medication adherence in patients with a past medical history of hypertension with a 4-week telemedicine intervention at UCI Health’s Emergency Department and set out to answer the following; In adults with a past medical history of hypertension who present to the Emergency Department, does a telemedicine follow-up program increase medication compliance with antihypertensive medications? The intervention consisted of increasing participants’ knowledge of hypertension and their medications. Weekly interventions assessed the patient’s knowledge base and served as medication adherence reminders. A total of 10 participants were included in the intervention. At the end of the 4-week intervention, there was a statistical significance in increased medication adherence.