Systemic implementation strategies to improve hypertension: the Kaiser Permanente Southern California experience

Abstract

The past decade has seen hypertension improving in the United States where control is approximately 50%. Kaiser Permanente has mirrored and exceeded these national advances in control. Integrated models of care such as Kaiser Permanente and the Veterans Administration health systems have demonstrated the greatest hypertension outcomes. We detail the story of Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC) to illustrate the success that can be achieved with an integrated health system model that uses implementation, dissemination, and performance feedback approaches to chronic disease care. KPSC, with a large ethnically diverse population of more than 3.6 million, has used a stepwise approach to achieve control rates greater than 85% in those recognized with hypertension. This was accomplished through systemic implementations of specific strategies: (1) capturing hypertensive members into a hypertension registry; (2) standardization of blood pressure measurements; (3) drafting and disseminating an internal treatment algorithm that is evidence-based and is advocating of combination therapy; and (4) a multidisciplinary approach using medical assistants, nurses, and pharmacists as key stakeholders. The infrastructure, support, and involvement across all levels of the health system with rapid and continuous performance feedback have been pivotal in ensuring the follow-through and maintenance of these strategies. The KPSC hypertension program is continually evolving in these areas. With these high control rates and established infrastructure, they are positioned to take on different innovations and study models. Such potential projects are drafting strategies on resistant hypertension or addressing the concerns about overtreatment of hypertension.