Conference Coverage
VIDEO: U.S. hypertension guidelines reset threshold to 130/80 mm Hg
ANAHEIM, CALIF. – Thirty million Americans became hypertensive overnight.
Target:BP
Performance metrics are not the only path that could take U.S. medicine toward lower BP targets. Another active player is the Target:BP program, a voluntary quality-improvement program for increased U.S. hypertension awareness and better management launched in late 2015 as a collaboration between the AHA and the American Medical Association.
Given that both the new guideline and Target:BP were developed through partnerships involving the AHA, “it’s logical to connect [the guideline] to Target:BP, said Dr. Egan, an AHA spokesman for Target:BP and professor of medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
Dr. Brent M. Egan
Target:BP’s participants are health care organizations, including health systems, medical groups, community health centers, and physician practices. The program has two primary threads.
First, it functions as a recognition program that cites participating organizations if they achieve a prespecified level of BP control.
In 2017, the program released its initial list of successful participants, organizations that maintained at least 70% of their patients diagnosed with hypertension at a BP of less than 140/90 mm Hg. According to data reported by Willie E. Lawrence Jr., MD, during the AHA scientific sessions in November in Anaheim, Calif., 191 participating programs reached this level and won a “gold” designation from the program for their level of BP control during 2016, out of 310 participating organizations that submitted 2016 data to the program.
