Now that you’ve set your goals, determine how your patients will measure their blood pressure and select a reporting tool to help patients track their readings.
While patients typically have their blood pressure checked during each clinic visit, they should also monitor their blood pressure between appointments in order to understand their blood pressure over time and meet the goal of recording eight readings within four consecutive months. Patients can check their blood pressure between appointments using various methods, including:
- Blood pressure stations at local pharmacies, grocery stores and fitness centers.
- Home blood pressure monitoring
Select the reporting tool that fits your clinic’s budget, goals, and participants’ needs.
The Guideline Advantage™
The Guideline Advantage is a quality improvement program for healthcare providers that promotes the use of evidence-based treatment guidelines, performance measurement tools (including those listed below) and strategies to improve HBP screening and management of patients with HBP. The program uses both clinical and patient reported blood pressure readings to track adherence to guidelines for blood pressure control and incorporates a number of other prevention and chronic disease management guidelines. Learn more about The Guideline Advantage.
Heart360®
Heart360 is a digital health monitoring system that helps patients understand and track the factors that affect their heart health, including blood pressure and physical activity. Heart360 safely and securely stores personal information in a health application called Microsoft® HealthVault™. Heart360 is available at Heart360.org and is free to join. Patients can log and track their health data as frequently or infrequently as desired. Additionally, Volunteer Health Mentors and physicians can connect to patients on Heart360 to communicate, track patient’ data, and encourage patients to take control of their health.
higi
higi is a partner of the American Heart Association that offers health monitoring stations located in nearly 10,000 retail pharmacies and grocery stores throughout the country. higi provides a health assessment of blood pressure, weight, pulse and BMI in a simple, fun and rewarding way to help patients track and improve their overall health. higi users can print their assessments directly from the kiosk, send an email or access their information via higi.com or higi’s mobile app (available for iPhone and Android phones). The AHA is working with higi to determine how to optimize utilization in clinical settings. You can encourage your patients to use local higi stations to track and log their blood pressure. Find stations near you.
HELPFUL RESOURCES:
Getting Started with Heart360® (Coming soon!)
The Guideline Advantage Fact Sheet