Two hundred practices that control blood pressure in four patients out of five

The Million Hearts® Hypertension Control Champions are clinicians,
practices and health systems that have achieved **a hypertension control rate
of at least 80%** — four patients in five with their blood pressure under
control.

**Between 2012 and 2024: 199 Champions, across 44 states, caring for roughly
16 million adults.**

What they did

The description of how they got there is unglamorous, and that is the point:

They achieved improved performance by **attending to elevated blood
pressures at every visit** and **persisting to work with patients until
blood pressure control is achieved.**

No new drug, no technology. Two habits: **never letting a raised reading pass
unaddressed**, and not stopping at one attempt. Hypertension is the
condition where "we'll check again next time" is the default and where the
default is the problem.

Where they are

The distribution is lopsided in a way worth noticing.

**Alabama, Idaho, Maine, North Carolina, South Dakota and Vermont have
none.** Some of the states with the heaviest burden of hypertension are the
ones with no recognised Champion, which says more about where the programme
has reached than about where blood pressure is controlled.

Why the 80% figure matters

Hypertension is common, mostly symptomless, and treatable — so the gap between
"diagnosed" and "controlled" is where nearly all of the avoidable strokes and
heart attacks live. A practice at 80% has closed most of that gap for its own
patients, which is why the programme recognises the rate rather than the
number of patients treated.

Source: Million Hearts®, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.