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A Retrospective Chart Review Analyzing The Relationship Between Blood Pressure Rechecks And Polypharmacy, Callie M. Bartkowiak, Meghan K. Gwinn, Danielle Heidemann

Medical Student Research Symposium

ABSTRACT BODY:

Background: Hypertension (HTN) affects nearly 80 million people in the United States. A patient’s blood pressure (BP) measurement may influence the number of antihypertensives prescribed. Providers often do not recheck BP when a patient’s measurement is elevated despite research supporting that remeasuring may result in a significant decrease in BP. We hypothesized that patients who have BP remeasured in clinic would have lower BP values and thus less antihypertensive medication. In our academic general internal medicine (GIM) clinic, providers are encouraged to manually repeat BP if elevated on vitals taken by medical assistants using an automated cuff at …