Targeting of UnControlled Hypertension in Emergency Department

The proposed project underscores the following: 1) The prevalence of uncontrolled/undiagnosed hypertension (HTN) in underrepresented groups presenting to the ED is alarmingly high, and 2) ED engagement and early risk assessment/stratification is a cost-effective, feasible innovation to help close health disparity gaps in HTN. This proposal involves a two-arm randomized controlled trial of up to 770 patients from the Emergency Department at University of Illinois Hospital with elevated blood pressure (BP). The primary objective is to determine the effectiveness of an emergency department-initiated Educational and Empowerment (E2) intervention with a Post Acute Care Hypertension Consultation (PACHT-c) intervention (arm 2) on the primary outcome of mean systolic blood pressure (SBP) differences between the two trial arms at 6-months post intervention. Secondary objectives include evaluating the effectiveness of this ED education and empowerment intervention on mean SBP and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) differences at 3-months, and mean DBP differences at 6-months.