health
Standards lacking for clinical practice guidelines, report says
Posted April 9, 2012
Amid the growing number of published clinical guidelines, it increasingly is important that health professionals discern which recommendations are high quality and should be trusted, says a report in the April 3 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.
To help promote international standards for clinical practice guidelines, the Guidelines International Network identified 11 key components for creating high-quality and trustworthy recommendations. The network is a multidisciplinary group of 89 clinicians and guideline developers from 46 countries, says the report (link).
The components call for: establishing a guideline development panel that is diverse and includes relevant stakeholders; disclosing conflicts of interest and financial support; identifying objectives and scope of the recommendations; detailing descriptions of development methods; and doing external review by stakeholders. In creating the list of components, the network reviewed manuals and protocols and published articles about guideline development.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/04/09/hlbf0409.htm.