Exploring Blood Pressure Indices with Prognostic Power for Tele-monitoring and Decision Support Purposes

Blood Pressure Indices (BPI) are being investigated for their prognostic values. This study aims to resort to work in process capability in order to suggest new indices. The results of recent studies on BP variability are extracted to represent a model relating mean systolic BP and standard deviation (SD) of daily BP measurements to the risk of cardiovascular (CV) events. The study ranks the conventional and potential indices and suggests two process capability related indices that display a linear relation with CV risks. These indices could be suitable candidates to be considered for BP control and decision support systems and could be subject to validation studies.