White coat hypertension: relevance to clinical and emergency medical services personnel.

Context: White-coat hypertension (WCHT) is a relatively unexplored cause of elevated blood pressure readings in the clinic and in prehospital emergency medical services (EMS) settings.

Objective: The purpose is to summarize WCHT in the clinical office setting and speculate on its relevance in the prehospital setting. This review emphasizes the etiology, diagnosis, prognosis, and application of WCHT in both the clinical and prehospital settings.