Therapeutic inertia is a measurement of the resistance to therapeutic treatment for an existing medical condition. It is commonly measured as percentage of the number of encounters in which a patient with a condition received new or increased therapeutic treatment out of the total number of visits in which a patient had a condition.
<math>\frac{h}{v} - \frac{c}{v}</math>
...where h is the number of visits with an uncontrolled condition, c is the number of visits in which a change was made, and v is the total number of visits[1].
A high percentage indicates that the health care provider is slow to treat a medical condition. A low percentage indicates that a provider is extremely quick in prescribing new treatment at the onset of any medical condition.
Hypercholesterolemia: two-thirds of patients with statin indications had not been offered statins in one registry study[6]
Hypertension. Therapeutic inertia may contribute to the finding that in the US 62%, and in Europe 85%, of office visits with a high blood pressure the health care provider does not increase medications.[7] The magnitude of inertia may change over time in response to emerging research on hypertension[8].