"Rochester Model" gets spotlight for hypertension program

Posted at: 01/30/2012 1:44 PM

An effort led by business leaders, in partnership with local healthcare organizations, to make the Finger Lakes region the healthiest community in the country serves as a model that other cities could follow, according to the Journal of Clinical Hypertension.

The "Rochester Model" was created by the Finger Lakes Health Collaborative -- a partnership of the Rochester Business Alliance, Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency and area hospitals and leaders -- to reduce the cost of local healthcare.

The article in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension focuses on the efforts to reduce hypertension in the community -- a leading cause of strokes, heart attacks and kidney and heart diseases. An estimated 32-percent of the region's population has high blood pressure and the group wants to reduce the number of people with hypertension to 25-percent in a five-year time period.

If the program is effective, it could mean potential savings of $8.5-million annually for the Finger Lakes.

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