Research Spotlight: Dr. Ann Philbrick, PharmD, FCCP, BCPS, BCACP

Tell us about your research.

The research we did at the Minnesota State Fair was further research on a project we completed last year, OBP-30 (Thirty minute office blood pressures). This entails placing a blood pressure cuff on a patient and letting them sit for 30 minutes will an automated blood pressure machine obtains readings every 5 minutes. The last 5 blood pressure readings are averaged for one final "OBP-30" reading. This reading has been shown in the literature to be similar to your normal daily blood pressure. When we did this study originally, we were able to find predictors of patients that would have a high initial reading, but then their blood pressure would decrease by the end of the 30 minutes. In practice, this is often called white-coat-hypertension. We realized during the OBP-30 that thirty minutes was a long time for a patient to sit still, and it was not feasible to integrate into practice. We saw the Driven to Discover research opportunity as a way to test out a shorter time period, in a large number of people over two days at the Minnesota State Fair. We developed a protocol called "OBP-15" in which readings were obtained every 5 minutes for 15 minutes, with the last 3 averaged for an "OBP-15 reading." We had a total or 72 patients (36 each day). Since the research isn't published yet, I can only say that we say some similarities and some differences from our OBP-30 results. The State Fair is definitely not the same setting as a clinic!