

Those efforts were part of a big health care provider's eight-year program, involving more than 300,000 patients with high blood pressure. At the beginning, less than half had brought their blood pressure under control. That increased to a remarkable 80 percent, well above the national average, the researchers said.

The research involved Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, a network of 21 hospitals and 73 doctors' offices, which makes coordinating treatment easier than in independent physicians' offices.




"What's unique about this is the sheer scale of what they've done," said Dr.


Goutham Rao, a family medicine specialist at NorthShore University HealthSystem, a group of four hospitals in Chicago's northern suburbs. Rao is involved in research on reducing obesity and other risks for heart disease.

"If we were able to keep everyone's blood pressure under control in the United States, the number of new strokes and heart attacks would go down just exponentially," he said.





Two features likely played a big role in the program's success: In 2005, the region started using a single generic pill combining two common blood pressure drugs, lisinopril and a diuretic. The pill is less expensive than taking the two medicines separately, and easier to use.


"Patients really liked it because it was shorter, more convenient and more affordable," Jaffe said. He did not provide information on patients' costs or overall program costs and said that wasn't part of the study.

Donna Arnett, president of the American Heart Association, said "it's well documented that compliance to medication increases" when it's simpler to take. She said the results suggest that other large medical systems could adopt similar programs and achieve similar success.




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