Taking repeated blood pressure readings over a 24-hour period rather than a one-off measurement in the clinic is the most cost-effective way of deciding who should be prescribed drugs for hypertension, according to a study published Wednesday. The findings in favor of so-called ambulatory blood pressure monitoring were immediately adopted by Britain’s health costs watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), in new guidelines on how to diagnose and when to treat high blood pressure.
