Doctors could improve the care of high blood pressure by relying more on home blood pressure (BP) checks and not so much on the less-accurate office BP assessments, wrote health care quality experts from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) in an editorial in the journal JAMA.
Doctors could improve the care of high blood pressure by relying more on home blood pressure (BP) checks and not so much on the less-accurate office BP assessments, wrote health care quality experts from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) in an editorial in the journal JAMA.
“As the evidence in favor of HBPM (home blood pressure monitoring) continues to accumulate, it is time to update how the quality of hypertension care is evaluated and reported,” wrote Kevin Hwang, M.D., M.P.H., and Eric Thomas, M.D., M.P.H., of the UTHealth Memorial Hermann Center for Healthcare Quality and Safety.
A reason for the blood pressure disparities is a phenomenon called the “white coat syndrome.”
“Many people get nervous when they see a doctor or a nurse and their blood pressure goes up,” said Hwang, who is an associate professor of internal medicine at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth.
Read more at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Image: UTHealth's Kevin Hwang, M.D., M.P.H., is a big fan of home blood pressure monitoring. (Credit: PHOTO CREDIT: Rob Cahill, UTHealth)
