Update Clinical Care Guidelines

Guideline Development Process

The development of clinical care guidelines has been established to ensure the guidelines present recommendations based on current evidence and are feasible, measurable, and achievable. In many cases, guideline development involves a collaborative effort.

• Collaborators on clinical guidelines may include: 
  • Patient groups and associated medical advisors.
  • Specialists for a specific disease.
  • Medical professional societies. Societies most often provide a website with information on the guidelines development process. A few examples include: 
    • American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Clinical Practice Guideline Manual
    • American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Clinical Practice Guideline Manual
    • Endocrine Society Practice Guidelines Methodology
    • American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Systematic Review and Guideline Development Process
• General process: Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust: Standards for Developing Trustworthy Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) (2011) is a compilation of standards that can be used to determine how to successfully create clinical practice guidelines. 
  • The 8 standards are:
    • Establishing transparency.
    • Managing conflict of interest.
    • Guideline development group composition.
    • Clinical practice guideline/systematic review intersection.
    • Establishing evidence foundations for and rating strength of recommendations. 
    • Articulation of recommendations.
    • External review.
    • Updating.
  • The document provides recommendations for composing a group to create the guidelines and how to review and update the guidelines.
  • Medical professional societies base their own process on the standards set forth in this document.
  • These guidelines were developed by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (the National Academies)
    • The document is only 2 pages in length. 
    • The IOM was renamed the Health and Medicine Division (HMD) in 2016.
    • The National Academies are a series of private, non-profit institutions that have been in operation since 1863, when President Lincoln signed a congressional charter to the National Academy of Science. The National Academies conduct independent, objective activities to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology, and medicine. 

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