Yale New Haven Hospital was awarded the American Heart Association's Comprehensive Hypertension Center Certification, recognizing its Hypertension Center's commitment to evidence-based treatment guidelines for complex or difficult-to-treat hypertension.
The Hypertension Center is a collaboration among Yale New Haven Hospital Heart and Vascular Center, Yale Medicine Nephrology, and General Internal Medicine, providing comprehensive diagnostic testing and therapeutic options for complex hypertensive disorders, including resistant hypertension and endocrine, vascular, and inherited causes.
Certified facilities must be primarily devoted to hypertension patients, recognized as referral and treatment resources for resistant and secondary hypertension, and equipped to assess complicated hypertension problems. The center underwent several reviews by American Heart Association quality improvement specialists evaluating policies, procedures, and operations to ensure appropriate diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment protocols.
Benjamin Gallagher, MD, director of the Hypertension Center and associate professor of Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, said, "The Hypertension Center is thoroughly committed to providing our patients the highest quality hypertension care centered in current scientific research. The American Heart Association's Comprehensive Hypertension Center Certification has highlighted our accomplishments and is recognition of our commitment to continually work to improve the overall treatment and care for our patients with hypertension."
Nationally, the prevalence of high blood pressure awareness is estimated to be 32.4%, and approximately 30% of Connecticut adults have ever been told by a health care professional that they had high blood pressure, according to the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
Hypertension is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, the leading and fifth-leading causes of death in the U.S., respectively; nearly 690,000 U.S. deaths in 2022 were caused by hypertension complications, driven in part by modifiable risk factors including dietary sodium, potassium, and alcohol intake, physical inactivity, and obesity.
