High blood pressure: The silent danger of modern times
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are currently about 1.3-1.4 billion people worldwide with high blood pressure. However, nearly half of patients do not know they have the disease and only about 20% effectively control blood pressure.
In Vietnam, the rate of high blood pressure in adults currently fluctuates around 25-30%, equivalent to tens of millions of people with the disease. Worryingly, the disease is tending to rejuvenate rapidly due to sedentary lifestyle, prolonged stress, salt consumption, obesity and heavy alcohol consumption.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Nguyen Son - former Deputy Director of Central Military Hospital 108 - said that high blood pressure is the leading cause of stroke, myocardial infarction, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, chronic kidney failure and premature death.
Hypertension treatment has made much progress with fixed-dose combination drugs, more accurate electronic blood pressure measuring devices and remote disease management models.
However, according to WHO, the rate of patients controlling blood pressure reaching the target is still low, including Vietnam. The biggest barrier today is not in drugs or technology but in awareness and adherence to treatment. Many people only measure blood pressure when they feel tired, change medicine themselves or skip follow-up check-ups, making disease control difficult to achieve the expected effectiveness.
AI enters blood pressure care
OSP AI Technology Joint Stock Company - a member of the OSP Group ecosystem - officially launched Kolia, a healthcare support application applying artificial intelligence (AI), targeting people with chronic diseases, especially high blood pressure.
With the message "Accompanying healthy living with chronic patients", Kolia is developed as a personal health care assistant, supporting users to monitor blood pressure, build nutritional habits, exercise healthily and connect with loved ones in the daily health care process.
Mr. Le Quang Dung - Chairman of the Board of Directors cum General Director of OSP GROUP - shared: Kolia is not a medical device and does not have the function of diagnosing, prescribing or replacing doctors' professional opinions. The application mainly plays a role in supporting users to record health data, track indicators and prepare information when needing to exchange with medical staff.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Do Van Chien, Deputy Head of Cardiovascular Intensive Care Department, Central Military Hospital 108, said: Hypertension and chronic diseases need to be monitored for a long time, but many people still have difficulty remembering to measure blood pressure, take medicine or re-examine on schedule. Kolia was developed to support small but repetitive tasks every day such as saving blood pressure readings, monitoring health trends, reminding of medication and re-examination, helping users be more proactive when talking to their doctors.
The application also supports family connection when it allows relatives to track shared health information, receive warnings when there are abnormal indicators and grasp health status remotely. Periodic reports help users and families easily monitor health care processes.
Kolia applies AI to support digitizing data from blood pressure monitor images, prescriptions, medical records and provides personalized reminders. The multi-agent AI system helps classify, synthesize and interpret health data in a more user-friendly direction.
Mr. Le Quang Dung added that after 18 months of research and development, the application was built with the orientation of supporting daily health care operations such as reminding to measure blood pressure, take medicine, re-examine and store health data over time.
AI in Kolia is positioned as a tool to support memory, synthesis and information reference, instead of replacing doctors. The entire content in the application is for reference and users still need to contact medical facilities in unusual cases or need to decide on treatment.
Mr. Le Quang Dung added: "We did not build Kolia to replace doctors. Kolia was created to accompany users in very ordinary things such as remembering to measure blood pressure, taking medicine according to instructions, monitoring body changes and connecting with loved ones.
Many chronic patients have difficulty tracking their health, remembering their medication schedule or re-examination. Kolia was developed to support blood pressure retention, track health trends, and send personalized reminders.
The application also allows users to share health data for relatives to monitor remotely, receive warnings when there are abnormal indicators. In addition, AI is integrated to digitize data from blood pressure meters, prescriptions, medical examination forms and synthesize health information in a more understandable direction.
