Group Visits to Improve Hypertension Management

Inclusion Criteria:

Subjects include both health care professionals and their patients. The included health care professionals are primary care clinicians practicing at VA Palo Alto who have their own panels of patients for whom they provide primary care. Included patients are patients of these primary care clinicians; the patients must have a diagnosis of hypertension and at least one blood pressure in the previous year that was above guideline-target for that patient, and patient must be approved by the primary care clinician as suitable for a group medical visit.

Exclusion Criteria:

Primary care clinicians with very small patient panels (too small for recruitment of patients for group visits) ae excluded. Patients are excluded by their primary care clinician using clinical judgment; typical reasons for exclusion include terminal illness, dementia that would make patient unable to participate in group discussions. Because primary care clinicians located at main study site do not provide primary care to children, no children will be included in the sample.