A University of Iowa medical researcher’s study of hypertension is getting national attention. Professor Barry Carter studied patients with high blood pressure at clinics in six Iowa communities. Doctors and pharmacists worked closely together to modify medication for half of the patients. Carter says that collaborative effort was twice as likely to achieve control of high blood pressure.
“Blood pressure control rates in a group of patients, who previously did not achieve control, were 30% in the control group that did not receive this intervention and 64% in the intervention group that did receive this physician/pharmacist collaborative model,” Carter said. Around 60% of patients with hypertension are not able to bring their blood pressure down.
“Part of that is because patients don’t go to the doctor as they should and part of it is they don’t take their medicine,” Carter said. “But, our research shows a big part of that is medications aren’t intensified and used in the proper combination to achieve blood pressure control.” Carter’s research appears in a recent issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine. He’s hoping new federal health care legislation will encourage more team-based medicine.