At around £1,500.00 is the A&D TM-2657P waiting room blood pressure still worth the money?
Self patient blood pressure measurement devices like the A&D TM-2657P are not new and there are now several hundred in use in the UK since they were first introduced by PMS Instruments 17 years ago in 2002.
Sited in the waiting room, for many Practices they are an integral part of their long term medical conditions clinics allowing them to work smarter, not harder, whilst helping patients take ownership of their conditions and play a more active role in their treatment.
A number of GP practices have adapted established protocols whereby patients pass their blood pressure results to the reception team and are then advised as to whether there is a need for further clinical follow up.
The protocol needs to be easy to follow and comprehensive to ensure that the receptionist is taking no responsibility for a clinical decision. When implemented correctly, after suitable training the process works very well.
Why is all this relevant to Primary Care and the NHS?
When this type of service is introduced anecdotal evidence from PMS Instruments GP customers suggests that waiting room BP monitors are used by up to 240 patients every month and only 80 of them require any further intervention. This represents a potential “saving” of over 160 face to face GP clinical appointments.
Let’s do some maths!
According to NHS England, the average GP appointment costs £30 so in the example above that’s a saving of £4800 to the NHS every month.
So the payback period in terms of time saved and the initial £1500 cost of the monitor is established but what are the other benefits?
It’s about time.
According to a report published in Pulse in August 2019, over half of GPs have said the average waiting time for non-urgent appointments at their practice is now over two weeks.
Anything that can help reduce this must be a good thing and waiting room blood pressure monitors like the TM-2657P can.
With the protocol above Doctors and nurses who want to monitor a patient’s blood pressure ask the patient to use the waiting room BP monitor and they only need to see a Doctor if their readings move out of an agreed range. Patients can do this at any time the practice is open freeing up valuable appointment time.
Nurses who run chronic disease clinics can also ask patients to monitor their blood pressure before coming to their clinic. Apart from saving nursing time it gives an immediate focus to the consultation.
Public Health England and NHS England have agreed ambitions and a goal over a 10 year period to improve the detection and treatment of high blood pressure with the following targets
- 80% of the expected number of people with high BP are diagnosed by 2029
- 80% of the total number of people diagnosed with high BP are treated to target as per NICE guidelines by 2029
How do we achieve these objectives when Primary Care is already overstretched?
In this instance the technology, in the form of waiting room BP monitors, already exists we just need to encourage wider adoption and not be afraid to adopt new approaches.
Time is money as the saying goes and the A&D TM-2657P saves time and money one measurement at a time.
