UC Irvine News Brief: Sheldon Greenfield leads national effort to set clinical practice guidelines
The Donald Bren Professor of Medicine and co-executive director of UCI’s Health Policy Research Institute chaired an Institute of Medicine committee that issued two reports March 23: “Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust” and “Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews.”
Dr. Sheldon Greenfield, Donald Bren Professor of Medicine and co-executive director of UCI’s Health Policy Research Institute, chaired a national Institute of Medicine committee that issued two reports March 23 offering guidance to healthcare providers in evaluating various healthcare options. The first report, “Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust,” recommends eight standards to ensure the objective, transparent development of trustworthy clinical practice guidelines. The second, “Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews,” recommends 21 standards to ensure objective, transparent and scientifically valid reviews. Poor-quality reviews can lead clinicians to the wrong conclusions and, ultimately, to inappropriate treatment decisions, the IOM panel noted. “These standards are necessary given that there is little documentation by which to judge the quality and reliability of many existing clinical practice guidelines,” Greenfield said.