GRACE Community Clinic has partnered with the American Heart Association for the past two years in their efforts to improve clients’ health by lowering their blood pressure through the AHA/AMA Target:BP™ Program. The first year GRACE Community Clinic received Gold Status Recognition in reaching and, even exceeded the Target BP goal, which was 70% of clients with a diagnosis of hypertension are under control (B/P less than 140/90). This year we have once again exceeded the Target: B/P™ goal and have reached 76% control with clients with a diagnosis of hypertension.
A huge thank you to all our volunteer providers and clinical staff for helping us achieve this goal for our GRACE clients. Hypertension is the first in a “domino effect: chain leading to devastating consequences, like: Stroke, Heart Failure, Vision Loss, Heart Attack, Kidney Disease/Failure. 85.7 Million adults (1-3) in U.S. have hypertension and 45.9% of those with hypertension are not controlled (36.7 million people. It cost $48.6 billion each year (healthcare services, medications and missed days of work according to the American Heart Association.
What changes have we made in our practice:
- Increased education and collaboration with our providers
- Implemented the new 2017 Guideline for the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Management of High Blood Pressure in Adults.
- Increased Educational and Assessment Efforts with Clients
- Nutritional Classes
- Hypertension Classes
- Provider Visits
- Nurse Visits
- Staff and Clinical Volunteer Education on the 7 Simple Tips to Get Accurate Blood Pressure Readings
- Providing B/P machines to hypertensive clients with proper education on taking BPs and using BP log
We are very excited to see positive outcomes for our clients with these efforts, and hopefully, will be able to prevent some of these co-morbidities. We are projecting even better results with our next submission of data to the AMA.
By Shirley Roberts
