Abstract P333: National Trends in the Quality of Office Blood Pressure Measurements, 2014-2019

Abstract

Introduction: Clinical practice guidelines emphasize the importance of accurate blood pressure measurement and recording to diagnose and treat hypertension. Trends in terminal digit preference (typically manifest by a terminal digit of ‘0’) have not been examined nationally. The growing use of automated blood pressure devices may have reduced terminal digit preference and improved accuracy over time. Objective: To evaluate trends in terminal digit preference in office blood pressure measurements among adults with hypertension by patient and provider characteristics. Methods: We used IQVIA National Disease and Therapeutic Index (NDTI) data from January 2014 through June 2019. The NDTI is designed to be nationally-representative of all patient visits to office-based physicians and uses a two-stage stratified sampling design to sample ~4,000 physicians per quarter who report information on all patient visits on 2 random workdays. We included all hypertension treatment visits (~60M/year) among adults aged ≥18. We examined trends in the proportion of hypertension treatment visits with recorded systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure measurements with a terminal digit ‘0’. The expected percent of blood pressures with ‘0’ is 10% for automated and 20% for manual readings. Results: There was a decrease in the percent of visits with SBP (43.0% to 37.4%) or DBP (44.3% to 38.1%) recordings ending in zero ( Table ). The decrease in percent of SBPs with a terminal zero was similar by patient and provider characteristics, though the percentage of SBPs with a terminal ‘0’ was consistently higher among patients aged ≥60, when SBP ≥140 mmHg, and among cardiologists. Conclusions: Terminal digit preference is common indicating systematic error in blood pressure measurement and recording, despite some improvement over time. This may lead to under- and overtreatment of patients with hypertension. Improving the quality of blood pressure measurement is central to improving hypertension diagnosis and control in clinical practice.