Background: Current guidelines recommend oral (PO) medications as first line therapy for management of hypertensive urgency. However, patients without end-organ damage who are symptomatic or have extremely high blood pressure (BP) may be classified as either “hypertensive urgency” or “emergency” by treating physicians.Objective: In a cohort of hospitalized patients with severe hypertension but no organ [...]

Background: Intravenous (IV) anti-hypertensive medications such as labetalol and hydralazine are commonly administered as needed or “prn” to asymptomatic patients in the hospital with elevated blood pressure. This practice may lead to patient harm (such as hypotension or stroke) and increased costs without any known benefit. Much attention has been focused on this issue in [...]