A new Australian-developed online calculator lets doctors model the effectiveness of different antihypertensive combinations on their patients.

The George Institute for Global Health has published the free Blood Pressure Treatment Efficacy Calculator, which could help doctors skip trial-and-error prescribing as they try to optimise treatment, according to George Institute senior professorial fellow Professor Anthony Rodgers.

“Using the calculator challenges the traditional ‘start low, go slow, measure and judge’ approach to treatment, which comes with the high probability of being misled by blood pressure readings, inertia setting in or the burden on patients being too much,” he said.

“With this new method, you specify how much you need to lower blood pressure, choose an ideal treatment plan to achieve that based on the evidence and get the patient started on that ideally sooner rather than later.”