CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The American Heart Association recently announced the initiative to lower blood pressure and improve heart health in the U.S has now helped over 8.6 million people since its inception in 2015.
This year the Heart Association and its partners in the effort, the American Medical Association, nationally recognized a total of 1,709 healthcare organizations through their efforts with Target: BP, an initiative started in response to the rising number of people struggling with hypertension in helping them get the issue under control.
A total of 3,700 clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) have so far gotten on board with the initiative since its inception, and those healthcare facilities recognized this year alone represent a total of 47 states.
American Heart Association Community Impact Director for West Virginia Holly Mitchell said while there are many clinics and FQHCs in the state who have joined the initiative, they are trying to encourage more, as it has proven to be beneficial in helping lower high blood pressure averages.
She said they particularly urge clinics who work with chronic disease patients to join Target: BP, as it’s not only an information portal for the patients but a data entry portal for the clinics to track the patients results.
“We encourage all of the clinics we work with to enter in the data with hypertension, we also encourage them to do the same for diabetes and high cholesterol, so that we can see trends with how their chronic disease patients are doing,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said AHA looks at the data the organizations provide to assess what they are doing most effectively in order to improve patient’s health within those areas, looking at aspects such as the resources the clinics provide to the patients, the use of validated blood pressure cuffs, ensuring BP is being monitored accurately, and so forth.
They work with the Target: BP partnering healthcare organizations to improve BP control rates through the evidence based AMA MAP framework: Measure Accurately; Act Rapidly; and Partner with Patients.
Heart disease being the country’s leading killer, a 2022 status update from AHA showed nearly half of U.S adults– 121.5 million– are living with high blood pressure, and West Virginia is second in the nation for it.
Mitchell said a lot of the data they are receiving now is showing the issue is only rising in the state, and that many of the counties could use some more help with getting the average BP numbers down.
“We try to partner with all of our counties, all of our clinics and FQACs throughout the state, but we really try to hone in on the ones who are doing kind of poorly compared to other counties, maybe they don’t have enough resources, or they haven’t joined our program, and we want to give them the opportunity to join Target: BP and get the resources to treat the patients accurately,” she said.
She said a number of healthcare facilities who have partnered with AHA for the initiative have greatly benefitted in doing so.
Mitchell said while the health organizations guide the patients with the initiative and provide them with the necessary tools and resources to control their blood pressure, it essentially puts the effort into the patient’s hands.
“Taking your own blood pressure, doing anything for yourself really empowers yourself right, like checking your blood pressure twice a day, reporting back to your community health worker, nurse or physician, getting on your meds, eating right,” she said.
Mitchell said AHA rewards the clinics and FQACs who get the BP averages down to 70% or below, submit evidence-based BP activities patients complete, and receive Participation-level recognition for submitting data for the first time through Gold, Silver, and Bronze levels.
“We really want to show the clinics how much we appreciate them and all of their hard work, you know, I mean, working with patient’s one-on-one, sometimes that’s what it takes, and we know that’s not a small feat, and it takes a lot of staff time to do this,” Mitchell said.
However, she said this initiative is set up to make it easier, and she said it’s free for healthcare facilities to register to Target: BP.
For those healthcare facilities in the state who have not yet joined the initiative, she encourages them to reach out to her at holly.mitchell@heart.org to do so.