Antihypertensive Teach-Back to Reduce Delays, Cancellations, and Interventions in a Freestanding Gastroenterology...

The purpose of this study was improving patient compliance with the 2014 American College of Cardiologists/American Heart Association Joint Task Force Clinical Practice Guidelines recommendation regarding continuation of antihypertensive medications throughout the perioperative period. A patient education initiative, using the teach-back method of instruction, was implemented and evaluated. Effectiveness of instruction was measured by tracking hypertension requiring pharmacological intervention, procedure delay, and procedure cancellation. Pre- and postintervention data were collected from electronic health records using a retrospective cohort design. A χ 2 analysis compared pre- and postintervention groups. The p value was calculated using the χ 2 analysis, (χ 2 [1, N = 1,044] = 7.71, p = .00548). No incidence of case delay or cancellation was experienced in either test group. Incidence of patients requiring preprocedural pharmacological intervention decreased by 70.5%. Statistically significant decreases in pharmacological treatment of hypertension supported permanent inclusion of the antihypertensive patient teaching method at the project gastroenterology clinic.