Leveraging the Public Health Infrastructure Funds to Strengthen the Public Health Foundational Capability by Implementing Blood Pressure Kiosks Across the State
ResourcesSession Summary
In this virtual poster, the Arkansas Department of Health shares how it is using blood pressure kiosks to increase awareness of hypertension, particularly in rural communities. The presentation highlights early findings on kiosk use and underscores the importance of connecting individuals with healthcare professionals for follow-up care.
Presenter(s):
- Clara Canter
Transcript:
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain inaccuracies.
Clara Canter:
Arkansas is a rural state where 74 of 75 counties are designated as either Health Professional Shortage Areas or medically underserved areas. Arkansas also ranks first in the nation in heart attack deaths and eighth in the nation in stroke deaths. And the prevalence of hypertension in Arkansas is 42% compared to 34% nationally. And many people who have hypertension are undiagnosed, and their hypertension is uncontrolled. Half of the people who are diagnosed still have uncontrolled hypertension.
To address this issue, the Arkansas Department of Health utilized funds that we were fortunate enough to receive from the CDC through the Public Health Infrastructure Grant to place freestanding blood pressure kiosks in 90 of 94 of our local public health units and to gain a better understanding of how those blood pressure kiosks are helping at the local health units. We sent a survey to all 90 administrators of the units that received a blood pressure kiosk. In this survey, we asked that administrators share their perceived importance of the kiosk in raising awareness of elevated blood pressure among those who use it, the observed utilization of the kiosk, and if they or their staff had been informed of an elevated reading from clients or public users.
Among the administrators, 94% of them believe that the blood pressure kiosk installation has been important for increasing awareness of elevated blood pressure among the public, and 71.9% of the administrators observe daily or weekly use of the kiosks by the clients or the public, and only 34.4% of the administrators reported that kiosk users voluntarily shared their blood pressure readings with LHU staff. Going forward, we would like to encourage LHU staff and administrators to find ways to increase the usage of these blood pressure kiosks in their unit. Additionally, LHU staff should emphasize the importance of users sharing their elevated blood pressure readings with healthcare professionals so that they may receive further guidance regarding their readings.