December 4, 2023
Decades of research and evidence have answered this simple question quite clearly: The single greatest opportunity to save lives is in effective control of blood pressure.
That is why Aledade is thrilled to congratulate Dr. Darrin Menard – a family physician with Scott Family Physicians in Lafayette, LA, and Regional Medical Director at Aledade – for being named by the United States Department of Health and Human Services as one of 24 Million Hearts® Hypertension Control Champions for 2023! These champions are recognized for demonstrating their commitment to help their patients with hypertension manage their blood pressure – and they each achieved a hypertension control rate of at least 80%.
“I was inspired and driven by the study Farzad was part of in 2010 that so clearly emphasized that the best thing we could do to prevent more deaths was hypertension treatment,” said Dr. Menard. “It led me to think about blood pressure management from a population perspective, which then led me to making changes in our practices to get our entire team on board. And I think that was critical to our success. When patients heard from front and back office staff and every single person they came in contact with on our team that managing blood pressure was important – and when the patients received weekly calls from our team checking in on their blood pressure – they took to heart that it was important as well.”
Dr. Menard noted that these efforts caused his practice’s hypertension control rate to rise from 63% to 90%.
“We realized we were on to something when we were reflecting on our last quarter and realized we haven’t had a patient with a heart attack or stroke in those three months,” he added. “Our team has been fully committed to value-based care for a while now, and taking on this initiative was something we were all excited about. We’ve been in practice for 25 years now, and building on that trust we have from patients and helping them to achieve a better quality of life is what we’re all in on. And this isn’t work that’s going to stop! We have to keep our heads down and keep doing the work – and now that we’re more efficient at hypertension management, it’s time to add on more projects. For me, that’s hyperlipidemia treatment – the second way we can prevent deaths and enhance outcomes for patients.”
Dr. Menard concludes: “The projects and initiatives that come with doing value-based care effectively take a lot of time and effort – but in the end, it’s always worth it.”
Learn more about Million Hearts® and the other 2023 Hypertension Control Champions here.