Improving Blood Pressure Control Through Standardization of Workflow in Outpatient Internal Medicine Clinics.

BACKGROUND: Uncontrolled hypertension (HTN) affected billions of people worldwide and significantly increased the risk of cardiovascular disease-related mortality. Reviewing blood pressure (BP) data from WellSpan internal medicine clinics patients revealed an opportunity for improvement. PROJECT RATIONALE: The project intent was to improve BP control in patients with BP ≥140/90 mm Hg and achieve 85% HTN control by June 30, 2025. PROJECT SUMMARY: The HTN Champion Initiative was a resident-led program that successfully established a workflow for stricter BP control through collaboration among residents, staff, and patients, with a focus on skill acquisition and education. TAKE-HOME MESSAGES: The HTN Champion Initiative had a meaningful impact on BP control in our clinic patient panel. Although the quality metric of our project was BP control in real time, the expected downstream effect was the associated long-term mortality benefit.