Failing to correctly diagnose and control high blood pressure (HBP) can put people at increased risk for cardiovascular disease, stroke, and renal failure. In the US, 20% of adults with hypertension do not know that they have the condition and 53% of US adults taking antihypertensive medication have uncontrolled BP.
New guidelines to improve detection and treatment of hypertension have been published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
The writing committee for this new document, which I chaired, developed new measures to evaluate the care of patients in accordance with the 2017 Hypertension Clinical Practice Guidelines. They developed a comprehensive measure set for the diagnosis and treatment of HBP that includes 22 new measures: six performance measures, six process quality measures and 10 structural quality measures. The effective implementation of this measure set by clinicians, care teams and health systems will lead to significant improvements in effective detection and treatment of HBP for millions of people across the US.
Learn more about the new performance and quality measures for HBP at the American College of Cardiology’s website and read more on TCTMD, the publication of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation.
Also visit Target:BP to learn more about how health care organizations and care teams can, at no cost, improve BP control rates through an evidence-based quality improvement program and recognizes organizations committed to improving BP control.
About The Author: Don Casey, MD, MPH, MBA
A board-certified primary care internist, Dr. Don Casey has practiced primary care, emergency medicine, and hospital/critical care medicine in a variety of clinical settings for 19 years, including an inner city Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), a 2 physician private office practice, a large internal medicine teaching program group practice and a multispecialty group in a rural community providing full risk/capitated care to Medicaid patients. He is the current President of the American College of Medical Quality (ACMQ). He has also served as a medical director for long term care, palliative care, geriatric services and home care organizations. A highly sought after speaker, Dr. Casey lectures and teaches nationwide on health policy issues, physician leadership and on new strategies to improve patient care through population health, clinical integration, effective care coordination, evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, patient-centered outcomes, new models of undergraduate and graduate medical education and quality performance measurements.
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