1 research outputs found
Improving Collection of Second Blood Pressure for Patients in Primary Care Who Present with an Elevated Reading
Purpose: Early diagnosis of hypertension is critical to prevent complications such as renal and cardiovascular diseases. Many healthcare facilities do not have a blood pressure training program educating appropriate staff on importance of accurate blood pressure readings and techniques. The purpose of this project is to improve the number of patients with elevated blood pressure reading at the OneWorld Quick Sick Clinic. Methods: Health aides/Health Assistants/Medical assistants at OneWorld Quick Sick will receive blood pressure training to review proper techniques. During this training they will also be educated on appropriate follow-up blood pressure readings and a new technique to document elevated readings. Results: Pre-data collection was obtained over a four-month period in the Quick Sick Clinic. These results indicated that only 24.1%-56.9% of patients during this time received a second blood pressure reading. Post-data collection after the health aide training showed an increase in the average range from 50%-58.6%.
Conclusions: Implementation of the health aide blood pressure training program showed positive results in appropriate follow up blood pressure collection. There were also another two locations that participated after the initiation in Quick Sick. This further showed evidence of the effectiveness of the blood pressure training program