Physicians' participation in establishing criteria for hypertension management in the office: will patient outcomes be improved?

We designed this study to determine whether an intensive 1-day educational workshop involving family physicians in establishing essential criteria for hypertension management would significantly affect the short-term outcomes of hypertensive patients in their practices. Forty randomly selected physicians were separated into three groups: those who would be involved in establishing the criteria (15), those who would receive the criteria by mail (15) and those who would act as controls and not be aware of the criteria (10). We found no significant difference between the three groups in the number of hypertensive patients whose condition remained uncontrolled after the intervention. We conclude that physicians' participation in the establishment of standards of care for conditions such as hypertension or their awareness of such standards does not independently result in significantly better patient outcomes. Consequently, we recommend that physicians and health care planners concerned with improving outcomes not rely on any single intervention strategy when planning change.