The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health, has launched a $3.7 million, three-year educational effort to improve high blood pressure control nationwide.
About 150 physicians in 34 states and Washington, DC, have completed training to educate other physicians in their communities with the goal: of helping doctors and patients prevent and better treat high blood pressure.
The new public information campaign is a follow-up to the landmark Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT) and is being implemented in collaboration with the National High Blood Pressure Education Program (NHBPEP).
ALLHAT, the largest clinical trial of hypertension treatment ever conducted, is based at The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston. Study findings first announced in 2002 showed that diuretics - rather than newer, more expensive drugs such as ACE inhibitors, calcium channel blockers, or beta-blockers - should be preferred as a first therapy for most patients with high blood pressure.
"The key is to get the results out to the medical community and to patients with high blood pressure, so both can understand and apply the benefits of being on a diuretic and controlling hypertension," said ALLHAT principal investigator Barry R. Davis, M.D., Ph.D., professor of biostatistics and director of the Coordinating Center for Clinical Trials at the UT School of Public Health.
In the outreach program, "investigator educators" will lead small, face-to-face educational sessions with their physician peers. Educators are asked to make at least one presentation per month. The sessions include discussions of the study results, current hypertension treatment guidelines, and common concerns in clinical practice.
Each educator receives training, presentation slides and handouts, and materials such as posters and brochures for clinicians to use in their offices. The educators expect to reach nearly 30,000 physicians by Sept. 2006.
The campaign also provides materials to encourage patients to ask their health care providers about their blood pressure control and the medicines they take. Brochures, recipe books, and other tools to help patients adopt healthier lifestyles are also available.