Geevarughese, Stephanie

Despite aggressive efforts to help people achieve target blood pressure goals, currently in the US, only 52% of patients with hypertension have achieved blood pressure goals as established by JNC 8 (Low et al., 2014). Hypertension correlates with a greater risk of myocardial infraction, heart failure, stroke, and kidney disease (Low et al., 2014). Early detection and intervention is essential to reduce mortality and morbidity (Beune et al., 2014). Target BP is a national initiative formed by the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American Medical Association (AMA) in response to the rising incidence of uncontrolled blood pressure (BP). The program established protocols including teaching patients how to measure blood pressure accurately as well as partnering with families, patients, and communities to promote self-management goals in hypertension. The Target BP program was implemented by the staff at one primary care practice in South Florida to improve blood pressure in their patient population. This health center serves hundreds of thousands of patients in the South Florida area to meet the needs of primary care in the community. The intention of this doctoral project was conduct a program evaluation of Target BP within this community health center in order to understand if the program should be adopted, adapted, or abandoned. All 114 patients enrolled in the Target BP program at the community health center where evaluated for improvement in hypertension during a four-month period. Twenty-five patients had blood pressures collected for all four months. The community health center exceeded their goal of 10% decrease in in the patients with uncontrolled hypertension within the organization. In total, 47 (41%) patients showed improvement in blood pressure to normal limits according to JNC8 standards over the 4 months. Program interventions were implemented per protocol when patient’s blood pressures were out of range. Staff nurses and healthcare providers provided interventions to address diet, exercise, monitoring blood pressure on logs, as well as taking medication for hypertension to encourage achievement of Target BP goals.