Implementing Institute of Medicine Standards: Progress to Date

We invite you to share your thoughts on a Medscape article¹ that asserts that a majority of guidelines fails to meet the Institute of Medicine (IOM) standards for development of systematic reviews (SRs)² and clinical practice guidelines (CPGs).³ Did any of you think your respective organizations would be further along in this transition than you are?

Here are some examples of the AAN’s progress to date on meeting the standards.

1. We updated our process manual in November 2011 to be consistent with the standards both for SRs and CPGs.

2. We established a grandfather period for all projects in process, allowing project teams 18 months to produce a guideline draft for review by the AAN Guideline Development Subcommittee (GDS). Now that the period has ended, the GDS will review the drafts from those project teams that produced a draft by the deadline, and will focus on developing IOM-compliant SRs and CPGs.

3. We drastically reduced the number of projects we have in process. At one time we had 70 guidelines in process; now we will be focused on developing four SRs and four CPGs, each of which will be IOM compliant.

What have you and your organizations done to attempt to meet the standards within your processes? Please share your thoughts within the comments.

¹Barclay L., Clinical Practice Guidelines Fail to Meet IOM Standards. Medscape. www.medscape.com/viewarticle/773099?src=nldne. Published October 22, 2012. Accessed October 22, 2012.

²Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews. www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Finding-What-Works-in-Health-Care-Standards-for-Systematic-Reviews.aspx. Released March 23, 2011. Accessed March 23, 2011.

³Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust: Standards for Developing Trustworthy Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs). www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Clinical-Practice-Guidelines-We-Can-Trust.aspx. Released March 23, 2011. Accessed March 23, 2011.