Is It Possible to Increase Auto Blood Pressure Monitor Accuracy?

Some consumers notice their blood pressure monitors are not accurate and ask the manufacturers for help. Here are the manufacturer’s step by step suggestions.



All the suggestions to check are reasonable. However after all these are checked, the readings can still be consistently lower or higher than the correct value. The manufacturer would say that the blood pressure always fluctuates so you can measure 3 times and make the average. It is true that blood pressure fluctuates, but the monitor could also fluctuate with the true pressure. The offset is always there. For example, when your true blood pressure fluctuates from 140 to 130, the blood pressure monitor reading could fluctuate from 130 to 120, consistently lower. So, the average can’t solve the problem. There are research data to support. On the contrary, the blood pressure fluctuation masks the BPM inaccuracy. Then, the manufacturer can not provide more explanation, except that they claim their monitors passed validation test based on protocol. As we explained, the validation protocol can not guarantee the accuracy.