Improving Medication Adherence for Chronic Hypertension through Education and Self-Management Support: A Quality Improvement Project

In the primary care setting, management of hypertension is the most common reason
for office visits (Basile & Bloch, 2020). Uncontrolled hypertension accounts for 76% of
persons with hypertension (CDC, 2020). This quality improvement (QI) project was
conducted to improve medication adherence through education and self-management support
in the management of chronic hypertension in a private family practice site in southeast
Florida. The project addressed this by utilizing the Health Literacy Universal Precautions
Toolkit, 2nd Edition (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], 2015a) to frame
evidence-based interventions. UpToDate (Basile & Bloch, 2020) was utilized to provide
patient education materials on hypertension, patient specific medications and home blood
pressure monitoring. The conceptual framework was guided by the Health Literate Care
Model (HLCM) (Koh et al., 2013a) systems approach scaffolded with Orem’s Self-Care
Deficit Nursing Theory and underpinned with the Theory of Nursing as Caring.