A Quality Improvement Plan for Hypertension Control

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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The study hypothesis is that the implementation of a plan for quality improvement at the primary care health teams taking care of hypertensive patients, will increase the level of blood pressure control among those patients.

Detailed Description
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The study is to compare the results on the hypertension control between two groups of primary health care teams. The intervention group will undertake a quality improvement plan for hypertension control, in which the following aspects will be included in the intervention: Specific training programme on how to diagnose hypertension , and measure blood pressure correctly To send feed back information to primary care health professionals about poorly controlled hypertensive patients An audit will be performed, every 6 months, to see the adhesion to the recommended clinical guidelines , and the information will be diffused among the participant primary health care professionals Each participant primary health care team will have a designated reference person, that will provide support on any doubts on the programme implementation. The non intervention group will follow hypertensive patients following the same clinical practice guide as the intervention group, with no intervention on the primary health care professionals

Official Title
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A Quality Improvement Plan for Hypertension Control: the INCOTECA Project

Conditions
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Hypertension

Intervention / Treatment
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* Other: Quality Improvement plan for Hypertension Control


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: Patients diagnosed with hypertension before January 1st, 2006 Patients assigned at the primary health team participating, and with clinical electronic records Exclusion Criteria: Patients diagnosed with hypertension after January 1st, 2006 Patients under 18 years of age Patients with a diastolic blood pressure higher than systolic blood pressure as recorded in the clinical records

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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No

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: quality improvement plan<br>It will be the group of primary health care teams who will undertake the quality improvement plan for hypertensive patients | Other: Quality Improvement plan for Hypertension Control<br>* Implementation of a plan of quality improvement addressed to health professionals in Primary Health Care Teams. It includes: Specific training programme on how to diagnose hypertension , and measure blood pressure correctly To send feed back information to primary care health professionals about poorly controlled hypertensive patients An audit will be performed, every 6 months, to see the adhesion to the recommended clinical guidelines , and the information will be diffused among the participant primary health care professionals Each participant primary health care team will have a designated reference person, that will provide support on any doubts on the programme implementation<br>|
| No Intervention: non intervention<br>It will be the group of primary health care teams that will not undertake the quality improvement plan for hypertension control | |

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| good control of hypertension as a dichotomous variable, based on systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure records over the last 12 months |  | every three months, for a whole year | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| treatment with antihypertensive drugs, number of antihypertensive drugs, assessment of therapeutic compliance |  | every three months, for a whole year | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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Hypertension, Intervention, Primary Care, Quality improvement