Here’s the most innovative idea I’ve heard in healthcare in a long time!
From Journal Watch:
A Little Off the Top: Barbershop Hypertension Intervention
Barbershops may offer an opportunity to intervene against uncontrolled hypertension in black men, an Archives of Internal Medicine study shows.
Researchers randomized 17 black-owned shops in Texas either to provide pamphlets on blood pressure control or to perform actual blood pressure measurements and refer hypertensive men to clinicians. Barbers were paid for their screening work and also received payment for successful referrals.
At the end of 10 months, independent assessment of average blood pressures in the shops revealed that the intervention group had achieved a greater improvement in the hypertension control rate compared with the comparison group. The absolute difference between groups in improved control was almost 9%.
The authors say, “The public health potential is intriguing.” And an editorialist — himself a patron of a black barbershop — points out that “current systems of health care are not working” for black patients with hypertension.
Archives of Internal Medicine article (Free abstract)