Ambulatory blood-pressure monitoring provides improved estimates of true blood pressure to guide treatment decisions and can lead to reduced healthcare costs.
Blood pressure is inherently variable, and ambulatory measurements of blood pressure predict clinical outcomes better than do conventional, clinic-based measurements. Ambulatory monitoring can help identify "white-coat" hypertension, as well as patients whose blood pressure does not decrease the normal amount during the night. Ambulatory blood-pressure monitoring is practical, can lead to a reduction in health care costs, and can provide improved estimates of true blood pressures to guide decisions about treatment.
Pickering et al. (Wed,) studied this question.