Centralized outreach with embedded pharmacist e-consultation to reduce therapeutic inertia and improve blood pressure...

To evaluate the impact of a population health intervention to reduce therapeutic inertia and improve hypertension control in a multipractice primary care setting.

This retrospective cohort study compares clinical and process outcomes in an intervention cohort versus a parallel comparator cohort of patients in nonintervention clinics. Centralized outreach coordinators identified patients with systolic blood pressure (BP) of >150 mm Hg, called each patient, scheduled a hypertension-focused visit with a primary care physician (PCP), then forwarded a message to the clinic-based pharmacist, who reviewed the patient record and documented clinical recommendations for hypertension control prior to the patient visit.

Outreach was performed for 426 intervention patients from July to December 2022, and outcomes were compared to those in 587 usual-care patients. A higher percentage of intervention patients attended a hypertension-focused clinic visit with their PCP (57.3% vs 38.8%, adjusted P < 0.001), had hypertensive therapy addressed at that visit when their BP was above 140/90 mm Hg (63.3% vs 44.2%, adjusted P = 0.010), and achieved a BP of <140/90 mm Hg (27.9% vs 16.9%, adjusted P < 0.001) within 6 months of outreach.

A clinic-based population health approach reduced therapeutic inertia and improved BP control in a cohort of in hypertensive patients compared with a similar cohort of patients in clinics who did not receive the intervention.