Sarah Gantz | The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)
PHILADELPHIA — Two Penn Medicine physicians had an unorthodox idea for reducing the number of patients who develop dangerously high blood pressure in the weeks after giving birth: Stop asking them to come into the doctor’s office for blood pressure screenings.
Dangerously high blood pressure, is a leading cause of maternal death and hospital-readmission after birth, and is often preventable with routine screening. But many new parents are too overwhelmed in the first days of their baby’s life to get themselves to extra medical appointments.
Physicians Sindhu Srinivas and Adi Hirshberg decided to instead send patients home with blood pressure cuffs and instructions for how to report their readings by text message twice daily for 10 days.
Ten years later, the results are so impressive, Penn has made it standard practice across its eight hospitals. The program, called Heart Safe Motherhood, has been nationally recognized with awards from the American Heart Association and American Hospital Association, among others. And now, it’s being used at other Philadelphia hospitals, including Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital.
More than 18,000 Penn patients have participated since the program launched in 2014. It’s credited with nearly eliminating the rate at which postpartum patients are readmitted for blood pressure complications within a week of giving birth, and closed a racial disparity gap that left many more Black patients at risk of severe complications.
The reason: More patients are following through on blood pressure screening after childbirth. Fewer wind up back in the hospital because doctors are able to spot danger signs and intervene sooner.
“We’re empowering the patient,” said Hirshberg, the director of obstetrical services at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. “We couldn’t do it without the monitors, but an important part of the program is the…
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