Nearly Fifty Years Ago, Researchers Found That Elevated BP Readings Were Too Often Dismissed In The ED -- That Failure Persists Kimberly Souffront Marcee Wilder Aleksandra Degtyar Lynne Richardson April 3, 2026

https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/nearly-fifty-years-ago-researchers-found-elevated-bp-readings-were-too-often-dismissed In 1978, Roger Glass and colleagues at Mount Sinai Hospital published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) establishing the emergency department (ED) as an ideal setting for hypertension screening and linkage to follow-up care. Their reasoning was simple: Blood pressure is measured universally in the ED, even for patients without access to primary care, and uncontrolled hypertension comes with serious short- and long-term consequences. Yet, when Glass and colleagues reviewed ED patient charts across three affiliated institutions, fewer than 50 percent of patients with elevated readings were recognized as hypertensive. And at some sites, hypertension went unrecognized in nearly three out of four patients. Even among those identified, only 10 percent were referred to follow-up care.