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Clinical Guidelines Overview

Clinical practice guidelines are evidence-based documents that provide recommendations on how to diagnose and treat medical conditions. They are developed to improve patient care quality and clinical effectiveness. The guideline development process involves 4 stages: conducting a literature review, constructing the guideline, testing it, and periodic reviews. Good clinical practice guidelines are clear, compatible with various disciplines, provide rationales for recommendations, and are sensitive to practical issues like costs and culture. They can benefit patients by improving health outcomes, reducing mortality and morbidity, and promoting standardized, high-quality care.

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161 views3 pages

Clinical Guidelines Overview

Clinical practice guidelines are evidence-based documents that provide recommendations on how to diagnose and treat medical conditions. They are developed to improve patient care quality and clinical effectiveness. The guideline development process involves 4 stages: conducting a literature review, constructing the guideline, testing it, and periodic reviews. Good clinical practice guidelines are clear, compatible with various disciplines, provide rationales for recommendations, and are sensitive to practical issues like costs and culture. They can benefit patients by improving health outcomes, reducing mortality and morbidity, and promoting standardized, high-quality care.

Uploaded by

Aillenne Alambra
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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CLINICAL GUIDELINES

A.k.a Clinical Protocols, Clinical Practical Guidelines (CPGS), Medical Guidelines, Practice Guidelines,
Evidence-Based Documents that serve as decision making guidelines.

DEFINITION

 Clinical practice guidelines (or simply "clinical guidelines") are recommendations on how to
diagnose and treat a medical condition. They are mainly written for doctors, but also for nurses
and other health care professionals.
 "systematically developed statements to assist practitioner decisions about appropriate health
care for specific clinical circumstances." Guidelines can be used to reduce inappropriate
variations in practice and to promote the delivery of high quality, evidence-based health care.

PURPOSE

 The purpose of guidelines is to improve the quality of care for patients and improve clinical
effectiveness by implementation of evidence-based care in daily practice.
 Clinical guidelines can be developed either locally (internal guidelines) or regionally or nationally
(external guidelines). Although internal guidelines may need fewer resources and may be more
likely to be adopted into clinical practice because of local ownership, local groups may not have
the skills required for guideline development. An alternative is the development of guidelines at
regional or national levels and subsequent modification to suit local circumstances.

GUIDELINE DEVELOPMENT HAS 4 STAGES

 Firstly, it is essential that guidelines are based on the best available research evidence, and
therefore a detailed literature search is done to identify evidence from research studies about
the appropriateness and effectiveness of different clinical strategies.
 Next, using the research evidence, guideline construction takes place, usually through some
form of small group work, with representation from as many interested parties as possible.
 Then, the guideline is tested by asking professionals not involved in the guideline development
to review it for clarity, internal consistency, and acceptability. The guideline can then be tested
in selected healthcare settings to see whether it is feasible for use in routine practice.
 Finally, the guideline should be reviewed after a specified time period and modified to take into
account new knowledge.

11 CHARACTERISTICS
 validity
 cost effectiveness
 reproducibility
 reliability
 representative development
 clinical applicability
 clinical flexibility
 clarity
 scheduled review
 meticulous documentation
 unscheduled review.

Principles of a Good CPG

Clarity

 All terms are clearly defined


 No Gray Areas that may confuse a healthcare provider
 e.g a cpg provides you an intervention or a course of care for patient SBP > 130 mmhg but does
not an alternative for SBP < 130 mmhg

Compatibility

 All components should be accepted by various concerned disciplines


 e.g a CPG states that a nurse, in the absence of a physician for more than 3 minutes,
may be himself administer 1 ampule of epinephrine on a crashing patient- This is
unacceptable in nursing practice.

Clear rationales

 A good cpg also provides rationales for every recommendation it has


 Evidence based

Sensitivity to practical issues

 Not simply because a resource is available, a cpg should outright recommend it


 Culture, economy and other logistics should be considered
 e.g a cph recommending the use of complete first aid kit by company where the
products may be too expensive for the population or not available locally.

Benefits of CPGS

 Helps improve health outcomes


 Can potentially reduce mortality and morbidity for certain conditions
 Improve consistency of care
 May improve frequency of performance of procedures for patient management and care.
 Promotes standardization of care
 May help reduce healthcare costs

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