TRENDS
Home is Where the Heart is Home-based BP monitoring is on the rise You may have seen alarming headlines last September about a decline in blood pressure control in recent years.
Authors of a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the proportion of the population with controlled blood pressure dropped to 43.7% in 2017-2018. It had increased from 31.8% in 1999-2000 to 48.5% in 2007-2008, and remained stable through 2013-2014 (53.8%). And the decline preceded the pandemic, when in-office visits (and in-person BP checks) dropped precipitously.
Some experts argue with the study’s methodology, but hypertension is of concern to all. Educating people about the risks of hypertension and how to avoid or monitor it remains Public Health Step No. 1. Making sure that health professionals in doctors’ offices take blood pressure readings correctly is Step No. 2. But increasingly, home BP monitoring is becoming Step No. 3. Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring continues to be the gold standard, but at-home units, including wearables, are playing a bigger role in BP monitoring today. 44
October 2021
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Home monitoring Even as far back as 2008, there existed widespread agreement on the efficacy of home blood pressure monitoring. “It is recommended that [home blood pressure monitoring] should become a routine component of BP measurement in the majority of patients with known or suspected hypertension,” read a Joint Scientific Statement from the American Heart Association, American Society of Hypertension, and Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association.
