Identifying barriers to hypertension guideline adherence using clinician feedback at the point of care

Lin ND, Martins SB, Chan AS, Coleman RW, Bosworth HB, Oddone EZ, Shankar RD, Musen MA, Hoffman BB, Goldstein MK. Identifying barriers to hypertension guideline adherence using clinician feedback at the point of care. AMIA ... Annual Symposium proceedings / AMIA Symposium. AMIA Symposium. 2006 Jan 1; 494-8.

Related HSR&D Project(s)

• CPI 99-275 – Guidelines for Drug Therapy of Hypertension: Multi-Site Implementation
• CPG 97-006 – Guidelines for Drug Therapy of Hypertension: Closing the Loop
• IIR 20-034 – Study to Lower Veterans Blood Pressure: Patient/Physician Intervention

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Abstract:

Factors contributing to low adherence to clinical guidelines by clinicians are not well understood. The user interface of ATHENA-HTN, a guideline-based decision support system (DSS) for hypertension, presents a novel opportunity to collect clinician feedback on recommendations displayed at the point of care. We analyzed feedback from 46 clinicians who received ATHENA advisories as part of a 15-month randomized trial to identify potential reasons clinicians may not intensify hypertension therapy when it is recommended. Among the 368 visits for which feedback was provided, clinicians commonly reported they did not follow recommendations because: recorded blood pressure was not representative of the patient's typical blood pressure; hypertension was not a clinical priority for the visit; or patients were nonadherent to medications. For many visits, current quality-assurance algorithms may incorrectly identify clinically appropriate decisions as guideline nonadherent due to incomplete capture of relevant information. We present recommendations for how automated DSSs may help identify "apparent" barriers and better target decision support.