(click on the image to enlarge)
This is part III in the series on managing blood pressure in the 21st Century. This panel focused on treatment. As with diagnosis, once a person is identified with high blood pressure, the actual “check” of whether the medicine is working should happen at home, not at the doctor’s office.
Again, there’s a CPT code out there that could be modified to support a physician office in monitoring the success of the medication and making the cognitive assessment as to whether it is working or not.
Given recent comments about safety-net populations, it’s useful to think “home monitoring” rather than “web + laptop” – this could happen via cell phone, via Twitter (my prototype is coming here soon, I promise), or any other accessible technology. The idea is simple – don’t require the patient to travel to the doctor’s office in person to be given a reading that is both expensive to obtain and challenged for accuracy, and empowerment to the patient….
Keep the comments coming!
Oh, and also, comments on this tool for communicating about workflow – should cartoons like this be used more often? Would you use them in any of your management/leadership work?