Article
Development of optimal presentation formats of guidelines for health care professionals
Search Medline for
Authors
Published: | July 10, 2012 |
---|
Outline
Text
Background:Recommendations about diagnosis and treatment can promote evidence-based practice at the point of care. Guidelines provide such recommendations but often have shortcomings both in content and presentation.
Objectives:To develop optimal presentation formats of health care recommendations.
Methods:Following brainstorming workshops, we developed an initial prototype based on a guideline using GRADE methodology (ACCP Antithrombotic Guidelines, 9th edition) The prototype was developed to allow multilayered presentation of guidelines in a wide variety of outputs including web, smartphones or electronic medical records. We gathered user feedback through user testing, employing a think-aloud protocol in a sample of physicians with different clinical backgrounds. We collected stakeholder feedback via email. We produced successive iterations of the prototype, following the rounds of feedback.
Results:Our resulting prototype builds, on a ”top layer” format, the information in the guideline that we judge to be a minimum for point-of-care decisions. This includes a structured recommendation and its strength, a key information section (benefits and harms, confidence in effects, values and preferences, and resource considerations) and a rationale (description of the guideline panels´ judgements in moving from evidence to recommendations).
Discussion:Our preliminary format may overcome some previous deficiencies of recommendation presentations. Further work includes testing in real-life guidelines and the evaluation of its impact on decision making outcomes.
Implications for guideline developers/users:Optimal presentation of guideline content is crucial to allow clinicians to act on the recommendations. Our format has the potential to improve this process.