Challenge

Hypertension often develops without noticeable symptoms, leaving many people unaware of the condition until complications arise. Effective management requires regular monitoring, sustained lifestyle changes and close cooperation between patients and healthcare professionals, yet existing digital solutions do not always fit established care pathways or meet the different needs of European health systems.

Public healthcare providers also face a fragmented digital-health market. Acting separately, they may lack the purchasing power and technical capacity needed to encourage suppliers to develop integrated, person-centred solutions for prevention, monitoring, treatment adherence and clinical decision support.

Solutions

HSMonitor brought together five public healthcare procurers from Türkiye, Italy, Croatia and Sweden to jointly commission new ICT-enabled hypertension services through pre-commercial procurement. Requirements were co-designed with patients and professionals and organised into nine building blocks covering early detection, self-management, healthier lifestyles, personalised care, professional coordination and effective use of clinical data.

Suppliers progressed through competitive stages: open market consultation, solution design, prototype development and real-world piloting. Five valid supplier contracts entered Phase I, three solutions reached prototype testing and two-HyperHealth and HSmartBPM-were selected for extended pilots at five healthcare sites.

Results

The two final solutions combined connected montoring devices, patient applications, personalised guidance and professional dashboards with clinical decision support. They were piloted for at least eight months and involved more than 360 patients and over 40 healthcare professionals-below the original target of 500 patients and 150 professionals. Users reported high satisfaction and usability, and both systems supported greater physical activity and reductions in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, particularly among participants with elevated baseline readings.

The project demonstrated that solutions could be adapted to four different healthcare systems while retaining a common service framework. Participants gained an average of 0.01 quality adjusted life years during the study, although the change in self-reported health-related quality of life was not statistically significant. The original estimates of serving 31 million people and generating €5 billion in cost relief over seven years referred to potential impact under full-scale deployment, not benefits achieved during the pilots.