[High blood pressure care: beyond the clinical setting].

The recommendations from the seventh report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC 7) were compared with those of a recent article by Aram V. Chobanian, Chairman of the JNC 7. The purpose was to identify the changes that this author proposed and determine how they might affect clinical work, as well as the health services and public health implications. The JNC 7 and the article in question coincide on all essential points, except that the article is more flexible when it comes to the use of diuretics at the start of treatment for high blood pressure. Chronic disease management should take place in health systems with primary care approach, where the epidemiology of such diseases and scientific advances in prevention offer an excellent opportunity for redesigning the health services and making them more effective. High blood pressure, as a public health problem, demands health interventions aimed not only at reducing harm but modifying its etiologic determinants. The challenge is to recognize that an integrated approach to clinical medicine, health services, and public health would offer an attractive opportunity to interrupt and prevent the continuous and costly vicious circle that managing high blood pressure and its complications implies.