Get your tests people

From WaPo:

Despite strong evidence that tests like a blood pressure check every two years are worthwhile, barely 50 percent of U.S. adults receive the diagnostic and preventive screenings that many medical experts recommend. Several factors explain why many Americans remain unaware that they have hypertension, colorectal cancer, high cholesterol and other lethal conditions: the proliferation of recommended tests, doubts about the value of some once-standard exams and time demands that keep many doctors from performing systematic screening.

Explain to me how the value of blood pressure cuffs has been questioned? (those drug store things don't count)  If people aren't getting their blood pressure checked every two years, it's because they're not getting/going to check-ups. 

In a study published last year, Duke University physicians suggested why compliance with screening standards is so spotty: "Taken together, the time needed to meet preventive, chronic and acute care requirements vastly exceeds the total time physicians have available for patient care," they said

If the patients don't show up for their physicals, that's one thing, but is it really that tough to screen for the basics -- blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes?  Colorectal cancer is a different story, you have to get an oh-so-pleasant colonoscopy, but surely the others aren't such a problem that primary care docs aren't doing their purported aim -- verifying the general health of their patients. 

Comments

[Cryptic Ned]

Why would physicians need to be involved in these routine screening procedures?

[joe blow]

I question the validity of this article.

I've been to hundreds of health care visits. NEVER ONCE has a nurse not taken my BP.

Are they claiming that doctors should be doing this and not nurses? Thats a load of bull. Nurses have always been the primary takers of blood pressure.